Well, 2020 has turned into quite the year for everyone. It has caused a bag of mixed emotions and may have disrupted the plan of your health and wellness goal that you set for yourself at the beginning of the year.
I’d love it if we could regain that focus during the last 90 days of 2020 together.
At Performance Health & Fitness, we have been coming up with monthly wellness challenges for over a year now. Usually, we dictate a goal for the month – but for this Last 90-Day Challenge, I want YOU to determine what your goal is going to be for the rest of 2020.
Before we figure out what your goal is going to be for our Last 90-Day Challenge let’s first take some time to think about what your core values are.
You may be asking me … what do my values have to do with anything when it comes to my health and wellness goals?
When we attach a goal to our core values, it allows us to create a personal connection by finding the intrinsic motivation to achieve our goal.
Values are defined as: a person’s principles or standards of behavior; one’s judgment of what is important in life. My values are my family, friends, career, and overall health.
Intrinsic motivation is defined as motivation that is found internally or within you and is focused on the long-term.
Extrinsic motivation is defined as something found external such as fitting into a swimsuit for spring break or making the NFL and is connected to more short-term goals. It’s ok to have both but when we focus on the intrinsic motivation that we have, it decreases the pressure of a deadline and we are more likely to stick to our plan because it is tied to our core values.
By going through these steps before we determine what our goal is going to be, it sets the tone of our process to be a positive experience – and then we become excited about the challenge.
Are you ready as I am to start this year over by thinking of what health and wellness goal you would like to work on for the next 90 days? Remember that when we want to come up with a goal that it should be a S.M.A.R.T. goal. Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely.
My last 90-day goal is to decrease my body fat percentage by 5% by the end of December. I will measure this goal by doing an InBody Scan here at the facility in order to obtain my current body fat percentage then take another one by the end of the year to measure my progress. It will be attainable because the steps that I will create in my plan are realistic for me to complete on a daily basis. It is timely because I have a deadline of the end of December. This will be a realistic goal for me to achieve because I have already assessed my willingness to make the changes necessary to be successful. Another reason is that it ties into my values and my long term goal of wanting to live a long-lasting, high-quality of life to be able to do whatever I want and to be around for as long as I can for my loved ones, my career, and contributes to my overall health.
Once you have determined what your goal is going to be, write it down!
Writing down your goals increases your chance of success by 33% compared to those that don’t, GO TEAM!
Now that we have defined our health and wellness goal, and have written it down, it is time to come up with a plan that will be necessary to achieve the goal. A plan is a series of steps that you are READY AND WILLING to do RIGHT NOW in order to achieve the long-term goal. I put both of those in bold because when we have an all or nothing approach that can tend to lead to people feeling overwhelmed and a feeling of failure. Instead, I want you to be realistic with yourself on what you can do currently. If you can only pay attention to one step at a time such as drinking half your body weight in ounces of water per day….THAT IS AWESOME. Then once you have that down you can work on the next step. There is no time limit or deadline for your individual plan because for people in general it takes 21 days to create a habit and 90 days to create a lifestyle. This is why our end goal should be realistic for us and our current abilities as opposed to what our friend, neighbor, or co-worker is doing that may be different.
Not everyone is capable of completing all of the steps necessary at once to achieve their long term goal and THAT’S OK! If this is you, please know that it is ok to go at YOUR OWN PACE and to take the steps that are needed to achieve your goal or maybe you will end up changing your original goal in order to fit what you are willing and able to do right now.
Remember those steps that you created in your plan a little bit ago that you know are necessary to do in order to reach your goal? Take those steps that you have created and number between 1 and 10 next to it. 1 means that you aren’t ready at all to put this step into action and 10 is LET’S DO THIS! (meaning it is realistic for you to implement this step for the last 90 days consistently). Now relist those steps from the highest readiness to change to the lowest. The goal is not to overwhelm yourself or to think that you have to achieve everything right now but to allow yourself to reflect on what steps you are willing to act on by the number that you have placed next to it.
Enjoy the process and strive for progress….not perfection. Your health and wellness journey is specific to you and no one else.
My hope for you is that you end up enjoying the process 🙂
Here are my steps:
- Exercise 4 days a week for at least 30 mins at least 2 days during the week and Saturday and Sunday for 1 month
- Drink half my body weight in ounces of water per day
- Read for 10 minutes daily
- Listen to 1 podcast daily
- Get 8 hours of sleep daily
- Eat nutrient-dense foods 80% of the time
- Decrease my stress
- Take 10,000 steps daily
Each month of the Last 90-Days Challenge, write down your values, your S.M.A.R.T. goal, and up to 5 habits you will work on daily to work towards your overall goal. Use the habit tracker to document your daily progress. After each month, focus on how your body feels after implementing your daily habits and reflect on your non-measurable victories. Examples: I have an extra $50 in my savings this month, or my clothes are fitting better, or I am happier on a daily basis, or I have less stress, or I don’t get winded going up the stairs anymore. I want you to focus on what went well or the positive outcomes that you have felt during October then figure out what you want to add in or change for the month of November and then again in December.
By the end of the Last 90-Day Challenge, my hope for you is that you regain the focus that you had before COVID to obtain your health and wellness goals. These skills could be reset for the first 90 days of 2021 in order to start working on whatever your next life goal will be.
To help you stay focused and accountable, we have created a free downloadable challenge worksheet. Download it now, print it out, and hang it somewhere you’ll see it daily.
Live long, enjoy the process, and never lose sight of your values as they are the most important thing to you <3.
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