I told myself that the first post of the new year would be about goals. As a goal, I guess I am achieving it but posting at the end of February and the last week of summer isn't quite what I had in mind...
This is usually the time of year when the New Year's resolutions are falling apart though. Everything starts off with a hiss and a roar and then reality eventually kicks in.
One fairly simplistic way to think about how to be successful in weight maintenance after surgery is that all you need to do is work out which habits you need to form, and then form and stick to them. Easy to say, a bit harder to do but the first part is adequately setting goals.
A good goal is a SMART one. Our registration forms ask people to write down three goals for themselves; these are best if they are things that you can't do at the moment, that you will be able to achieve afterwards, as a tangible reminder of what you have gained.
So a SMART goal is like this: Specific Measurable Achievable Relevant Time-bound
The S, M and T are the important ones...the other two are really just there to pad out the acronym.
So instead of having a goal like "I want to go running" you would convert this to "run 2km without stopping by the end of 2025".
The other feature to think about is having a goal, and a stretch goal. One of the mindsets we want people to break out of is the all-or-nothing, black and white perfectionist thinking. If I haven't achieved a goal, therefore I am a failure. There are two ways to achieve this - one is to allow yourself partial success by measuring a percentage of sucess, rather than a yes/no outcome.
The other is to set two bars - one lower and more achievable (e.g. 2km) and another higher target (e.g. 5km).
Another avenue to consider, specifically for setting preoperative goals, is also that you make them about yourself. One of the kaupapa of surgery is to make yourself more of a priority, often because putting others ahead of yourself has been part of the issue in the first place. So goals like "I want to be able to keep up with my kids", which I see frequently, is a worthwhile aim, I would refocus this. Make the goal about what you can achieve and are going to do for yourself, and then your ability to participate in activities with the rest of the whānau will naturally occur.
Next post much sooner than this one.
Nāku noa, na Ben