In the last few weeks, a few of us around the office have been talking about changes we’d like to make in our lives… exercising more, eating healthier and managing stress more effectively. Before coming to the Improve Group, I worked as a Health Coach and helped people set realistic goals for themselves to make long-lasting changes in their health, from quitting smoking to losing weight. As New Year’s resolutions are on many of our minds this time of year, I’d like to give you a few quick tips for making changes.

Start small and build on your successes over time. Oftentimes, when we want to make a change, we try to do it all at once. We go from never exercising at all to trying to exercise 30 minutes a day, five times a week. That’s a big change and it takes a while to build up to that. We can get very discouraged if we don’t meet our goals and then give up entirely. Instead, I’ve found that people are more successful when they start small (exercise 15 minutes twice a week) and gradually build on those successes until they get to their ultimate goal (30 minutes of exercise five times a week).

Don’t make goals that require 100% performance. Even if you’d really like to eat healthy meals seven days a week, when you are first making a change, it’s important to give yourself some room for error. Aiming for five to six times a weeks means that you can slip up and still meet your goals.

Tell others of your goals. Having a buddy to check in with can be a huge motivator!

Set your goals based on your actions, not the outcome. When you control the action (healthy eating and/or exercises), that will eventually lead the to the desired outcome (weight loss, for example).

Best of luck in 2009 from Liz and all of us at the Improve Group!