How to create your health goals

If you're like me, you're currently being bombarded with "new year, new you" social media posts putting you under pressure to totally overhaul your life and improve your health and fitness. Personally, I've never got on well with New Year's resolutions. When I have attempted them, I've been totally unrealistic and given up after a fortnight, usually with that horrible feeling like I've failed at something. However, in recent years I've found it helpful to use the New Year as a way to evaluate my life, including my health and fitness, to bring some focus and help initiate long-term changes if I feel they will be useful. Of course, this can be done at any time of the year and it's important to see it as an opportunity, rather than an added pressure.

If you like the idea of doing a general evaluation and finding areas where you'd like to make small changes, then read on, I may have just the exercise for you.

When you've got a good window of time to yourself, make yourself a cuppa and get settled down ready to put pen to paper. If you're like me, get all your colourful pens out and a big sheet of paper to help keep you focussed.

I always try to approach health from all angles by using the Naturopathic Triad. Each side of the triangle represents a different aspect of health; emotional/mental/spiritual, physical/structural and chemical/nutritional. We want to get all these aspects working well in order to feel at our best.

You're going to look at each aspect in turn and evaluate how each is feeling on a scale 0-10 (zero being "oh god, what wellness?!" and ten being "I feel amazing!") Full disclosure here, I understand that no one is ever 10/10 in all aspects of their health and they're all constantly changing, so don't get too hung up on the number as you go through the exercise. As I'll explain later, it's the why we care about, rather than the number itself.


Emotional Health.

To assess your emotional health ask yourself the following questions and rate your feeling/response out of ten as I just described:
- On a daily basis, how stressed do I feel?
- How do I feel about the relationships I have with people in my life? (Include your partner, family, friends and work colleagues).
- How do I feel about my daily and weekly schedules/time commitments?
- How do I feel about my work/career?
- How do I feel about my finances and stability?

Now take a look at the numbers and really focus on anything that falls below a five. Break it down even further to work out why these areas aren't up in the region of eight. Once you can get to the root cause of each area, it's much easier to create steps to improve them.

If you find that your stress levels are too high, but the cause isn't something you can quickly remedy, try finding an exercise or meditation to do daily to help manage the stress and reduce the physical impact it has.

If you need to improve your relationships, why not mark out regular time in the calendar to spend with loved ones and have real quality time. There are options with counselling and talking therapies if you feel this would be helpful.

If your daily schedule is too much or is making you unhappy, assess whether you can change it. Remember the reason why you're changing it- to help yourself feel better in the long-term!

I know work/career and finances are huge areas to look at, but if you find these are areas you need to address then seek support from a friend/colleague or organisations.

Physical Health.

Now looking at your physical health, without judgement, ask yourself the following questions:

- How are my energy levels?
- How are my pain levels?
- Are there any activities I cannot currently do that I want to be able to?
- How much are my stress levels affecting me physically?
- How does my digestive health feel?
- What current health commitments do I have and how do they make me feel? (E.g. gym membership, personal trainer)

I'm all about body positivity and celebrating what we can do, while still working towards goals. It's important to remind ourselves that we are all unique and will have completely different goals and dreams, so don't compare yourself to others. It can be helpful though to seek out people with similar goals to support and encourage each other.

Now addressing areas that are a five or below, start writing some small goals to help improve how you feel.

If you have low energy or experience chronic pain, take a look at my previous blog post about self-help for chronic pain and fatigue.

If you need help improving your digestive health, why not visit a Naturopath like myself for tailored advice. I've also written previous posts about improving digestive health and how to use a symptom diary.

It's important to keep reassessing our commitments and recognise if they're still the right thing or if they need changing. By clarifying what we want to achieve or how we want to feel, it's easier to create achievable goals. For example, monitoring your weight can be a good progress tracker, but when we say "I want to lose weight" it's more than likely a way to say "I want to be able to run around with my children for longer" or "I want to comfortably go on the fairground rides in the summer" and so on. When we focus on why we want to change, how it will make us feel, then we can narrow in on exactly how to achieve it.

Chemical/Nutritional Health.

Ask yourself:

- How do I feel about my eating patterns?
- How do I feel about my nutrient levels?
- How organised do I feel with my food planning/cooking?
- How do I feel about the amount of water I drink?

Note: Digestive health, energy levels and pain levels all link in to nutritional health as well as physical health, so do see if there are any ways to address both.

If you find your breakfasts need some inspiration, take a look at my previous post.

If you want to improve your nutrient levels, why not set yourself a goal number of vegetable portions each day?

A top tip to improve your water intake is to drink a few sips of water every time you're hungry or thirsty. Also, keep a bottle of water with you so you're aware of how much you've drunk throughout the day.

You can repeat this exercise at the start of each month to monitor how things are changing and to maintain focus. It's natural that as you form new habits and make long-term changes, the areas you need to improve will change as well. Regularly reassessing will keep you on top of things. It's important to remember to create small, manageable goals and not to put too much pressure on yourself. If you keep focussing on your goal, it will be easier to make the right choices, but always remember that nobody is perfect and it's all a work in progress! I hope this exercise is helpful, let me know how you get on and if you have any questions or need help with a specific problem.


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Zoë Clark is a registered osteopath trained at the British College of Osteopathic Medicine in London. Practicing in Howe near Norwich (01508 558373) and Burston, near Diss (07543 557746) in Norfolk.