This Little Mindset Shift Can Help You Achieve Any Goal

You know how it goes: You’re ready for a fresh start and you set a certain wellness goal for yourself. Maybe you’ve pledged to wake up at 6 a.m. for a daily morning walk, eat healthy salads for lunch, or do a nightly meditation before bed.

Then real life gets in the way. You hit snooze or stick with your usual sandwich. And you feel defeated.

I hear about challenges like these All. The. Time. I know the frustration you feel when you really want to make a change in your life but can’t make it stick.

Progress Not Perfection

As a Hinge Health coach, it’s my job to help others implement healthy lifestyle changes through setting and achieving goals that bring them closer to their ultimate wellness vision for themselves. In this role, I act as an accountability partner and “guide on the side” to assist them as they work to build and maintain healthy habits.

When those moments of self-disappointment strike, one thing I say all the time to my clients is this: It’s about progress, NOT perfection. (TBH, if it were easy to create and maintain new healthy habits, then I’d be out of a job.)

This is because there will be ebbs and flows on your health journey as you work to build and maintain new habits. Creating a healthier lifestyle definitely doesn’t happen overnight. Getting off track from your goals is part of the process.

In fact, it’s best to get comfortable with the idea that setbacks will happen.

Whether it’s due to having a sick child, family in town, or a heavier-than-normal workload, it’s easy to get out of our healthy routines as priorities may shift. It’s also easy to get discouraged and beat ourselves up about not doing what we said we would

But this kind of thinking isn’t helpful.

My Surprising Advice for Getting Back on Track

I’ll let you in on a little tip I love to recommend: Take your goal, whatever it is, and CUT IT IN HALF.

Yes, that’s right. If you’re having trouble meeting the goal you initially set, break it down further.

Old goal: Let’s say you planned to do your Hinge Health exercises four times this week. It didn’t happen (no judgment!).

New goal: At the start of a fresh, new week, plan to use the Hinge Health app two times instead of four.

The idea is to make your goal more bite-sized, which makes it more doable.

Then What?

If you hit the new goal: Celebrate your win by giving yourself some recognition or even a small reward. Stick with this plan until you feel ready to add to it incrementally.

If you don’t hit the new goal: Cut it in half AGAIN. So now you’ll aim to exercise once per week, which is still a step in the right direction.

It is absolutely fine to revise your plan as needed. There is so much power in taking action toward your goal — even if it’s a micro-step — because that is still progress. There is beauty in simplicity. Being open to adaptability can be a game changer.

Some Friendly Reminders

• You have the choice to restart after a setback.

• You have the ability to adapt to unexpected obstacles thrown at you.

• You have the tools within you to reset and plot a revised course as needed.

With this “cut it in half” mindset shift, you may begin to look at obstacles differently. You may feel more up to a challenge. You may even start to welcome new obstacles because you know you have a tool to help you overcome them.

In this case, thinking small can help you achieve big.