How often have we willed to accomplish a lifestyle goal, like losing a few pounds, or cutting down on certain types of foods (sugar, carbs), only to abandon our efforts partway through.  However, willing that you accomplish a goal is often not a great strategy for making it happen!

In fact, you’ll find the road to healthy eating littered with the corpses of abandoned resolutions and half-hearted resolve. When will power doesn’t work, there’s often an underlying cause as to why that is so. Usually, it boils down to the fact that your willpower alone wasn’t smart enough to see your goals to fruition. 

Why Willpower Often Fails

We, humans, are prone to instant gratification. When we plan something and start implementing the plan, it’s typical of us to want to see the results of our efforts almost instantaneously. For example:

• In January, we plan on saving for a road trip next year. Every week or month (if not every day!), we’ll check our savings Apps or checking account to see how far we’ve progressed!
• We’re finally headed on our road trip from Maryland to Boston. We know the trip will mean driving long and far, but we’ll check time and mileage every so often – perhaps every few miles, or every half-hour – to see how far we’ve made it

We’re willing to save or drive for prolonged periods to accomplish our goal of a great vacation, but we need periodic reinforcement to tell us “you’re doing Ok…just stick with the plan and you’ll get there!”.  In the absence of such reassurance, our will falters and we usually end up drastically down-sizing our goals or canceling them altogether. 

Most well-intended nutrition goals meet with a similar fate. If we don’t ground them in realistic milestones, it’s likely will power alone won’t help us accomplish them. In the new year, we must be smart with our goal-setting if we wish to meet and exceed our resolutions.  

Be SMART – Eat Healthily!

So, what are the SMART goals? 

Well, SMART is an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-bound. 

Being SMART about your nutrition goals builds a sense of purpose and determination around your “willingness” to accomplish them.  Along with will power, here’s how being SMART can help you meet and even exceed your nutrition goals:

• Is it Specific? Healthy eating habits start with being specific about what “healthy” means. It’s one thing to will a healthy diet. But when you get specific about it, the goals you set yourself become more achievable – not something abstract or aspirational. 

So, instead of saying “I’ll start eating healthy”, aim for “Oatmeal for breakfast, and only fish, vegetables and fruit for lunch and dinner” 

• Is it Measurable? Will power alone, without a concrete objective, won’t tell you if you’re achieving something – or not. If you can’t measure the goal you’re aiming for, you’ll likely never know whether you’re accomplishing it (or not!). 

So, instead of “I’ll eat less”, go for “I’ll reduce my portions by half”; or, instead of “I’ll exercise more often”, aim for “30 minutes of exercise twice a day”. To ensure you’re on track, keep a written log of everything you do towards achieving your goals.  

• Is it Attainable? Planning an unattainable goal will result in failure – no matter how sincere your will power might be. In fact, even attempting to accomplish something that’s beyond your initial abilities may turn you off trying to achieve it forever. If you’ve been a heavy eater all your life, giving up on a hearty breakfast, lunch and dinner may be a tall order to fill. 

So, instead of cutting your portions by half right out of the gate, which may be a non-starter, perhaps you might start with a third quantity, gradually moving to a 50% reduction 

• Is it Realistic? For life-long red meat-eaters, who have enjoyed beef for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, immediately foregoing their favorite source of protein might be an unrealistic goal, to begin with. So, how about aiming for something you can realistically achieve instead? For example, resolve initially to substitute high-fat cuts with leaner cuts (tenderloin or sirloin), and gradually move to white meat (chicken, turkey) 
• Is it Time-bound? Just as you periodically check the time or mile-markers during the drive to your vacation spot, so too are measurable milestones important for healthy nutrition planning. 

Put down exactly what you’ll accomplish by when: “Cut down portions by half in 3 months”; “Switch from red meat to chicken breasts in 8-weeks”  

Two other important things to remember, about setting SMART nutritional goals. Firstly, the goals may be flexible. For instance, if you haven’t managed to switch from red meat to white meat in the planned timeframe (8-weeks in our example above), perhaps you were being overly ambitious with your goals, to begin with. Don’t just give up. Instead, give yourself a couple of weeks more and, with some added willpower, you’ll see yourself over the finish line! 

Secondly, it’s okay to celebrate success – occasionally! After four months of religiously sticking to your “Oatmeal for breakfast” regimen (make sure you keep logs and check them frequently!), it’s also smart to skip a day of oatmeal in favor of an egg sandwich.  

Why SMART Works 

Will power alone can’t move mountains – you require action to do so. Sometimes though, we fail to understand why, how well-intended our actions are, they just don’t seem sufficient to get us any closer to accomplishing our nutritional goals. When willpower doesn’t work, we need a better framework for our goals. 

With SMART nutrition goals, you’ll not only set realistic and achievable goals for yourself; you’ll also know the real reason why you aren’t accomplishing them. And once you realize the underlying root cause for missing your target, a little recalibration can help you get to that goal. If you’re not SMART about setting those goals at the outset, you’ll quickly fail to get traction with your goals, and without knowing why that is so, your goals will remail accomplished.