Setting goals how to make it work

“Setting goals” and “creating action plans” may sound likebusiness-speak, but these are methods you can use to manage your health. By taking small steps, you will see bigimprovements.

You know that your health depends in part on the decisionsyou make every day—that is, your “diabetes self-management.” Some days,diabetes may seem overwhelming. There are just too many difficult choices tomake. But there is a technique you can use to make positive changes; it involvesgoal setting and action planning.

Steps in goal setting and action planning

Goals and action plans can be used for any health reason,such as to improve your diet, lose weight, exercise more, take medications moreregularly, avoid stress, or stop smoking. Goals and action plans are different.A goal is a general, long-term outcome that is hard to achieve all at once(such as “lose 10 pounds”). On the other hand, an action plan calls for aspecific, short-term result that is much easier to achieve (e.g., “eat only onecookie a day instead of three”).

This kind of behavior change works best when you followthese steps:

Decide which aspect of health you would like to work on thatweek (e.g., your weight).

Discuss your medical condition and options with your doctor.

Choose an action plan (e.g., specific changes you arewilling to make in your diet).

Rate your confidence in your plan.

Follow up with your doctor.

Be S.M.A.R.T.

An action plan can be a verbal or written agreement. Eitherway, it should be a plan that you want to follow, not something your doctor (oranyone else) forces you to do. It also has to be realistic.

The action plan should be very detailed, including what, howmuch, when, and how often to make the lifestyle change. In fact, your actionplan should be S.M.A.R.T.— specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and trackable.

You have to be confident that you can achieve your actionplan. One way to measure this is on a scale of 0 to 10, with 0 indicating “notsure at all” and 10 indicating “very sure” of success. You and your healthcareteam should revise the plan until you feel confident that it will work foryou—that is, it has a score of 7 or higher.

Once you have a specific plan that is realistic for you andthat you are confident you can achieve, it helps to track your progress.Consider keeping a diary to measure your successes. Don’t be upset if you breakyour plan once in a while. Get support from others to reinforce your effortsand help overcome any barriers to achieving your action plan. In addition tooffice visits, follow-up may include telephone calls, email contact, and evensupport groups. Support from family, friends, coworkers, and other diabetespatients can be a source of encouragement.

What happens next?

You can’t make changes overnight, so be patient. Once youbegin to achieve your action plan, however, you will be that much closer toachieving your overall goal.