Manchester Hypnotherapy Weight Loss By Being SMART
People often set goals and wrongly believe they will easily achieve them. How many time have you said “I will lose X pounds” only to find yourself a week later eating a chocolate cake?
Goals can motivate you, but general unspecific goals won’t. The way to stay focused and motivated is to make your weight loss goals SMART.
SMART stands for: S – Specific M – Measurable A – Achievable R – Realistic T – Timed
The example goal I use is a common one, that many dieters say “I want to stop eating so much food, because I’m overweight” Even though the goal is seen as positive and when you say it for the first time, you feel committed and motivated, you will give up.
This is because the weight loss goal is to general. A week after setting your goal, you may find yourself saying “I will just have one slice of cake and I will start the diet next week” or “I can have one slice because I lost a few pound last week” By setting Measurable and Time bound goals will prevents this, because you will feel as if you are letting yourself down.
If you set a general goal, there are no specifics“I didn’t say I would lose 10 pound..” so you can, without breaking your own commitment have that extra slice of cake. A Specific goal means you have to make a real choice, you cant hide. Are you going to give up? As appose to moving the none committal, general boundaries of your diet.
To make the goal more achievable we can make it SMART.
Specific: Don’t give yourself vague and ambiguous goals or you will achieve vague and ambiguous results. The key here is to make the goal detailed.
- I want to stop eating so much food can become more detailed by saying:
- I want to stop eating fatty food can become more detailed by saying:
- I want to stop eating cake (So we have gone from ALL food to just Cake)
Measurable: Always set goals that are measurable. If you don’t measure your goals you will never know if you are moving forward or not.
- I want to stop eating cake can become for measurable:
- I eat 10 cakes a week and I want to cut down to 6 cakes a week
Achievable: many people set goals that are so high or far that they become unattainable. You can have long term goals, but long term goals are so far away that you can allow yourself to cheat. Always set short and medium goals (or milestones) that are achievable.
- I eat 10 cakes a week and I want to cut down to 6 cakes a week can become more achievable:
- I eat 10 cakes a week and I want to cut down to 6 cakes a week, I will first cut down to 8 cakes a week.
Realistic: if your goal isn’t realistic then you soon realise that it can’t be achieved, which will in some cases lead to you giving up on your goal rather then creating a new goal. In our example, would the client be happy to cut down/give up eating cake? This maybe a yes or s/he may need to replace the cake with something else
- I eat 10 cakes a week and I want to cut down to 6 cakes a week, I will first cut down to 8 cakes a week can become more realistic:
- I eat 10 cakes a week and I want to cut down to 6 cakes a week, I will first cut down to 8 cakes a week, and instead of eating cake when I am hungry I will eat fruit.
In this case the client eats cake when they are hungry, it might have been unrealistic to not eat, but now they are replacing the cake, not giving it up
Time: Goals should have a timeframe, with no timeframe many people will just “never get around to it” deadlines can really spear people on. You may chunk a large goal down into several timed milestones.
- I eat 10 cakes a week and I want to cut down to 6 cakes a week, I will first cut down to 8 cakes a week, and instead of eating cake when I am hungry I will eat fruit. Can become
- By 5 Dec I will cut down from eating 10 cakes a week to 8 cakes a week, instead of eating cake when I am hungry I will eat fruit.
From “I want to stop eating so much food” we have “By 5 Dec I will cut down from eating 10 cakes a week to 8 cakes a week, instead of eating cake when I am hungry I will eat fruit.”
Chris Delaney NLP Life Coach, Hypnotherapist and Career Advisor is available for booking for One to One Private Sessions, Group Training Sessions and Public Speaking Events
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Chris Delaney NLP Life Coach, Hypnotherapist and Career Advisor is available for booking for One to One Private Sessions, Group Training Sessions and Public Speaking Events
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Minimal exercises and healthy diet plan are very best sources for weight loss. It is applicable for every weight watchers to lose weight in a healthy way.
I have been using the SMART goal setting in the past year and it has helped tremendously. You have to have something to work toward AND how to get there or else failure is inevitable. Thanks for sharing!