According to this popular website, the following the goals are the most common. These are the New Year’s resolutions people commonly make and, unfortunately, commonly break as well.
- Lose weight/exercise.
- Learn something new.
- Eat healthier.
- Get out of debt/save money.
- Spend more time with family and friends.
- Watch less TV/become less glued to computer and mobile screens.
- Travel more
- Be less stressed
- Get more sleep
We have a system at Ideal Balance that we walk each and every client through and we’re going to work through some of that with you today based on all of these goals.
The first step we would do if you were a client is to assess where you’re at. From there you’d be able to determine what is the biggest pain point you have is right now. THAT is where we’d start. We wouldn’t try to solve all the problems at once. That’s just setting you up for failure. We’d work on your first goal together, get you some success and momentum and then we can add on.
Once you’ve gone through that process, you’d probably arrive at one of these popular goals:
- Lose weight/exercise.
- Eat healthier.
- Get out of debt/save money.
- Spend more time with family and friends.
- Watch less TV/become less glued to computer and mobile screens.
- Travel more.
- Be less stressed.
- Get more sleep.
The next step is to turn it into a SMART goal. To do that we need to know exactly where you’re at now and what a reasonable goal would be within a specific amount of time. For our purposes, we’ll use 12 weeks.
From there we’ll determine the daily / weekly things that need to happen to make accomplishing the goal inevitable.
Finally, we’d train & coach you on these tactics, gradually dialing up the intensity each week. That simple!
So, what might that look like exactly?
Lose weight / exercise more
Goal: I want to go from 180 to 160 (lose 20 pounds) in the next 12 weeks.
Tactics:
- 10K steps a day
- 20 minute workout 5x / day
- Meal plan & prep
- Drink 80 ounces of water a day
- Go to bed on time
Coaching:
- Getting to 10K steps a day might be harder than you think. The average American only gets 3000-4000 steps a day. So you need to find small pockets during the day when you can be active. You also need a way to measure these steps. It’s not forever, it’s just for now.
- We might start the first two weeks with just 10 minutes. Then we will ramp it up. The goal is to make it too easy to do! Everyone can find 10 minutes. Once you get used to that and feel secure about doing that, you’ll start to feel like you can do more. Then we’ll do more. A GREAT 20 minute workout can really change things. We would work to get to that point. (GREAT workout example: 1 Min Burpees, 1 Min Squats, 1 Min Mountain Climbers, 1 Min Push Ups, 1 Min Skaters, repeat 4x)
- Any meal plan we advise is going to consist of you eliminating processed foods as much as possible. We have some VERY simple sheet pan recipes that make this as easy as possible to implement. We’ll get your dairy and gluten down as we go along. Portions will be on point. But, we WILL focus on making sure it’s all food you’re ENJOYING and throw in a few scheduled fun eating dates too.
- Water is a must when you’re trying to lose weight and be healthy. However, sometimes it’s harder than it seems. Measure your favorite water bottle and see how many you need to consume a day. Then set alarms on your phone. Again, this is all until it becomes routine. Another thing we do is have people take multiple full water bottles to their desk with them to make it easier to get their ounces in. Sometimes just the task of breaking your focus and getting up to get water seems impossible, so we work around it.
- Sleep is another big must if you’re trying to lose weight and be healthy. Listen, you burn SO MANY CALORIES when you sleep. Every system and healing process you have relies heavily on that sleep time. Most of our clients start out with sleep issues and they slowly resolve themselves as they get more healthy.
Eat healthier.
Goal: I will only eat out once per week.
Tactics:
- Meal plan weekly on Sundays (including your one night out)
- Meal prep weekly on Sundays
- Take lunch + snack to work
- Cook a new recipe at night or eat meal prep
Coaching:
- That Sunday time is super important. You will fall victim to your eat out habits if you don’t plan properly.
- It’s going to be SUPER important to keep lots of delicious, nutritious food easily available all the time. That might mean prepping things so they are easy to grab throughout the week and it might mean buying some things that are healthy-ish that will keep you from eating out.
- Make the plan & prep a habit and make it fun. Stack the plan, order, pickup and prep as close to one another as possible. Add music, maybe a glass of wine, maybe your family members!
Get out of debt
Goal: I will pay off $3300 in debt in the next 3 months (specially Visa & Chase credit card)
Tactics:
- Create budget
- Decide / begin extra income side job
- Plan & schedule garage sale
- Cut up credit cards
- Schedule & hold weekly budget meeting
- Pay down debt every payday
- Print debt tracker & mark every time debt is paid down
- Meal plan to reduce grocery bill
- Go over subscriptions to reduce expenses
Coaching:
- This is totally doable-it’ll just take some dedication.
- Think of fun things you can do that are free while you’re in this disciplined mode.
- Make the budget meetings fun.
- Reinforce the good habit of paying down debt by tracking it & marking it down together every week.
- Take advantage of the sale to declutter your home and love your space again. It will help with contentment and help you to spend less.
Spend more time with family and friends
Goal: I will have family game night once a week, date night once a month and one friend date a month.
Tactics:
- Sunday planning time
- Ideal Time
- Make a list of activities ahead of time
- Talk to family about game night
- Schedule babysitter / date night three months in advance
- Schedule with three friends ahead of time
Coaching:
- Planning is the key to all goals!
- Your Ideal Time is going to be the absolute key here. Get it all out on paper. There are many urgent things that might try to takeover, but what’s important you have to plan on purpose!
- Make a list of date night activities beforehand so you don’t have to use brain calories in the moment. This is key!
- Talk to your family about your plans & your why. Communication will help you all to stick to the plan.
- Go ahead and let your friends know your goal and schedule with them a few months out.
Watch less TV/become less glued to computer and mobile screens.
Goal: Reduce screen time from 15 hours a week to 5.
Tactics:
- List out everything you like to do for fun or that aligns with any other goals you have.
- Use the Ideal Time to plug and play what you’d rather do than be on screen time.
- Delete any apps on your phone that tempt you.
- Consider tactics like unplugging tv, screen time limits, removing emails and more.
- Brainstorm what you do WHILE on screens that might be a bad habit stack and work to remedy that.
Travel more.
Goal: Go on one trip per quarter.
Tactics:
- Look at annual schedule and plan / blackout dates for each quarter.
- Plan first trip.
- Set budget for trip.
- List out everything that needs to happen in order for the trip to happen.
- Put everything on the list in the calendar.
- Show up every week to do each step.
- Go on trip.
Be less stressed.
Goal: I will manage my time better and go to yoga class 3 times a week.
Tactics:
- Use the Ideal Time to schedule time.
- Brainstorm boundaries to help you protect your new schedule.
- Set up a morning ritual.
- Brainstorm afternoon and evening routines.
- Research yoga classes.
- Plug into schedule.
- Pre-purchase classes.
- Plan for class / habit stack to make it easier to get to class.
Get more sleep.
Goal: I will be in bed for 8 hours a night.
Tactics:
- Decide on your bedtime and your wake time. Make sure there’s 8 hours there!
- Figure out an evening routine that allows you to get better sleep.
- Read & implement our post about better sleep.
- Consider setting a BEDTIME alarm.
We founded Ideal Balance in 2020 on April Fool’s Day with a mission to help women get unstuck and level up their lives. We know you don’t need more information. You just need to take action. So, we make doing uncomplicated and doable. We also know that none of us have brain calories to spare for the little things in life that make the biggest difference. That’s why we help women install systems that make things like healthy eating, home organization and budgeting easy and automatic. Oh, and we hold you accountable every step of the way.
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