(light music) Hello. My name is Dr. Theresa Larson. I'm a Doctor of Physical Therapy, a former Marine Corps Officer, a wife, and a mother. Now this video series is on SMART goals, why we need them and how to write them. So why set goals? Setting goals is an excellent way to help you find success in reaching something you want in your life. If you want to be healthier, have a higher quality of relationships, travel, be more present with your family, compete in an activity, or simply be more activ
e, it helps to have a game plan to make this happen. Research has backed this and generally supports the behavior change is more likely when we set difficult goals, set them publicly like tell others, and make them really specific. How to know if you're ready for goal setting? Before we dive into specifics of goal setting, it might help you to know that not everyone starts in the same place when it comes to behavior change. We use scales of confidence and importance to determine readiness for ch
ange. CONFIDENCE. How confident are you that you will be able to make a change in one area of your life on a scale of one to 10? Rating your confidence can give you a boost in self-efficacy and motivation as you explore why you might be a five versus somewhere lower like a two. And it can prompt you to think about how you can further bolster your confidence. As an example, let's look at confidence in making positive changes to your level of stress or your sleep quality. Low confidence in these a
reas might sound like this. "Maybe I could manage my stress better and feel less on edge but I don't have any time to do it." "I can't control my stress because I can't control my boss." "My kids wake me up early, so I can't sleep in any later." "I haven't slept more than five hours since I was a kid." Higher confidence in these areas might sound like this. "I know I have five minutes each morning or in the car before I leave for work, where I can get in a quick meditation." "I can put the kids
to bed an extra half hour early to get myself to bed earlier." "I've been able to create new routines before so I can probably make changes again if I need to." So now let's look at importance. How important do you think it is to make a change for yourself in a specific area on a scale of one to 10? Taking an honest look at how you're evaluating your need for change can be clarifying because it can show you your values and a possible disconnect between your values and your time priorities. Let's
look again at managing sleep and stress, for an example. Low importance might look like this. "I feel okay, I don't need to change my stress level." "I need to take care of my kids first. Then I can take care of myself later." "I think I've been doing just fine on five hours of sleep. Why change it?" "I have tasks that need to be done. And nighttime is the only time to do them." Higher importance might sound like this. "I have more patience with my kids when I'm less stressed and I want to be a
better parent." "I know my health is impacted by my stress and sleep and need to work on changing both of them." "My emotions feel more manageable when I'm getting better sleep and I want to work towards mental wellness." Once we have a better idea of where we are starting with respect to the importance of and/or confidence in making a change, we can start writing goals that are aligned with our M-A-P, MAP, mission, aspiration, and purpose. There may be some preparatory work here as we seek out
information to increase the importance of certain changes, like the benefits of sleep or increasing our confidence in our ability to make a change, looking at our daily activities through a different lens. We might also be doing self-assessments, reflecting and thinking more critically about our values, mission, aspiration, and purpose, again MAP. However, once it's time for you to write goals, write SMART ones. (upbeat music) What are SMART goals? Good question. I'm going to answer that for yo
u right now. This is where SMART goals come into play. The acronym SMART, S-M-A-R-T, includes five components of writing a goal to help us create an action plan and increase our likelihood of success. SMART goals are: the S stands for specific. They detail exactly what we want to achieve. M is measurable. They are set up in a way that we know if we are on track or not. A is action-oriented. They include specific steps we can take to reach our goal. Realistic, they take into account our current m
otivation, resources, and environment. And T means time-based. They have a reasonable endpoint. The key is to follow this plan and reevaluate at various times. And here are some statistics. It takes 21 days to start building a habit and an average of 66 days to make that habit automatic. Creating a goal is relatively simple, yet following through is where the real success lies. I know you can do it.
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