Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Hey, everyone, I'm Courtney. I'm your dietitian with E2M.
[00:00:05] And today I wanted to talk about setting our New Year's resolutions, or better yet, setting our New Year's smart goals.
[00:00:15] These goals can really help set us up for success moving into the New Year, helping us maintain our goals in the New year.
[00:00:25] So as we approach 2026, a lot of us are probably thinking about what changes we want to incorporate in the New Year, whether it be saving money or eating healthier, losing weight, spending more time with loved ones, reading a book a month. These are all great goals, great intentions, great resolutions, but they can be very difficult to achieve if we're not setting a structured approach. Basically, many of us may fail. In fact, research has shown about 25% of people that have set those New Year's resolutions only continue the first 30 days of the year. So usually by the end of January, majority of people have fallen off the wagon or have turned away from their resolutions.
[00:01:17] Why is this? Why do we fail at some of our resolutions?
[00:01:22] Well, sometimes we set unrealistic goals.
[00:01:25] So maybe we have a goal of exercising five days a week, you know, going to the gym five days a week. Well, if you're a person who has not stepped foot in a gym in quite a while, going to the gym five days a week starting January 1st is probably not a realistic goal.
[00:01:46] So it's going to be important that we stay, set our goals, set those resolutions as something that's going to be achievable.
[00:01:54] Some of us may have a vague objective.
[00:01:58] For instance, I hear a lot, I want to get healthy. Well, what is healthy? It's very objective to people. Some people may find healthy as coming off medications. Other people may find healthy as increasing the number of steps that they're taking per day.
[00:02:16] Others may find healthy as eating out two times per week instead of every single day.
[00:02:22] So having a vague objective is also going to make it easier for us to fail.
[00:02:30] Failing to establish habits, so making these changes, not making these changes, that will cause us to fail. Unfortunately, research indicates that many of these resolutions, again, fail within those first 30 days because we don't make these changes.
[00:02:54] External pressure can be a big one.
[00:02:57] So if we are influenced by social expectations, so maybe we go into the New year with an expectation or a resolution of, I'm not going to drink any this year.
[00:03:11] But you're a social person, and a lot of your social interactions are around alcohol.
[00:03:18] You may have a lot of external pressure to enjoy in a social drink. So keep that in mind when we're setting these resolutions, the mindset of all or nothing that really does set us up for failure. Unfortunately, small meaningful changes is going to be best when it comes to achieving your goals. If our resolution is to to completely cut out sugar, and we cut out sugar for four days and start to feel symptoms of, whether it be shakiness or tiredness or low blood sugar symptoms, we're likely not going to stick with the I'm not going to eat any sugar for the month goal. So having those small changes is going to be really important.
[00:04:14] Lack of accountability as a biggie.
[00:04:17] If we don't have somebody who is there to support us in this journey, it makes it really hard for us to maintain those changes.
[00:04:26] And then sometimes we want that instant gratification and we do not get it instantly.
[00:04:32] So we're not going to lose £10 in a week. We're also not going to be able to completely cut out sugar in two days without having symptoms. So keeping these things in mind is going to be really in help is going to be really helpful. Excuse me. For planning for your New Year's goals and resolutions.
[00:04:54] Now the difference between a goal and a resolution I think is important to know when we are setting a resolution. This is a decision to do or not do something.
[00:05:10] These can be broad, your resolutions can be broad, open ended. A lot of times they lack a clear plan.
[00:05:18] So like I mentioned, I want to get healthy for 2026.
[00:05:22] What does that mean? Healthy is different for everyone versus setting a smart goal for the new year. This helps us to have a targeted outcome. With smart goals we have a defined timeline and we generally have an action plan.
[00:05:41] So how am I going to get healthy for 2026?
[00:05:46] Smart goals help us build these new habits that are going to be important for long term success.
[00:05:53] So when I say smart goals, this is an acronym for specific goals, measurable goals, attainable goals, relevant goals, so relevant to you and then time bound. So all of these things are what make up your smart goals.
[00:06:14] So with specific, we want your goal to be clear, to be defined, to also define the outcome. So who, what, where, why, when, how, when, when we are setting this specific goal with measurable, it's gonna help us stay on track. So you can set a measurement of one month, three months, six months, a year.
[00:06:42] It's your time that you anticipate that you're able to achieve the goal attainability.
[00:06:49] So is it realistic? So like I said, setting a goal of completely drink, not drinking alcohol, getting rid of all alcohol, it's a great goal. To it's a great achievement. However, if we are a social drinker, maybe we need to reevaluate the goal and say, okay, I will have one drink only when I'm out in a social situation.
[00:07:17] Same thing with weight loss.
[00:07:20] I will have a goal of losing one pound every other week because I'm going to do X, Y and Z to achieve that one pound weight loss.
[00:07:34] We want to make sure the goals are relevant to us. We want to make sure that we are setting these goals and they're not being set by somebody else for us because having them relevant to us is going to make it more of a priority.
[00:07:50] It's going to make it more important and then the time aspect. So setting that time is gonna help keep you accountable. If you're getting close to the end of the month and you want to have a goal of losing five pounds by the end of the month, and you're right at three pounds, that's probably gonna kick your butt into gear to lose those extra two pounds to reach your goal at the end of the month.
[00:08:15] I think it's really important for us to know that it's okay to have multiple time limits.
[00:08:22] So maybe we set a time limit of I'm gonna reduce my sweetened beverage or soda intake in half by the end of January, and then by the end of February, I'm no longer going to drink sodas or sweetened beverages. It's okay to have a breakdown to reach your overall goal. In fact, that's gonna help you maintain the change. That's going to help you feel better about what you're achieving, as opposed to saying, I'm not going to drink any sweetened beverages.
[00:08:58] It's all or nothing. That's the all or nothing mindset. I want y' all to have a it's not about perfection, but it's about progress. All or something is much better.
[00:09:11] Now, some examples of smart goals, and I've talked about some of them throughout the video, but some examples of smart goals that I have would be I want to cut my sugar intake in half over the next month by replacing sugary snacks with fruit or nuts. Now, this goal is specific. It explains exactly what we are going to change and how.
[00:09:36] So I'm going to reduce my sugar intake by half with eating fruit or nuts. It's measurable.
[00:09:43] It tells us how we can track the reduction in sugar.
[00:09:47] So if we are that person that drinks four cans of Coke a day or four cans of Pepsi a day, or eats a candy bar a day, if we're going to cut it in half. We know I'm only going to do two sodas and then the other two sodas I'll replace with fruit or I'm only going to do half a candy bar and the other half of the candy bar I'm going to replace with fruit.
[00:10:08] It's an attainable goal. So making it a simple or making simple dietary swaps makes it more realistic. So like I said, fruit is being replaced or excuse me, fruit is replacing the sugar. So that's an easy swap. For a lot of us it is relevant. Reducing sugar can support healthy eating habits, it can reduce the risk of diabetes, it can reduce complications with obesity, it can reduce heart disease risk, it can reduce your risk of stroke. Lots of benefits can come from just reducing sugar.
[00:10:45] And it's also timeline. It's also on a timeline. Excuse me. So it gives you that one month deadline.
[00:10:52] So if my goal is to cut half of my sugar intake out by the end of the month of January, it should be an easy step wise fashion for you to get there. If you are someone that drinks four cans of sodas a day, maybe the first week of January we cut it down to three cans a day and then the second week of January we take it down to two cans a day and the third week of January it's one can a day with increasing our fruit and nut intake each week.
[00:11:24] The second goal that I have an example of is I want to cook dinner at home three nights per week over the next month to save money and to be more mindful of my ingredients.
[00:11:37] So this is a specific goal, clearly stating how many nights we want to cook a week. Okay?
[00:11:44] It also helps us to track the number by saying three nights a week I'm cooking, we know how many nights we're going to cook. That's how we can measure is attainable. Because three nights a week is pretty realistic for a lot of us. To say I want to cook at home five nights a week, that can be hard for a lot of people.
[00:12:06] I am a dietitian with a full time job, three children and children who have activities after school.
[00:12:13] I thrive on realistic expectations when it comes to dinner. I do not expect anybody to say I'm never going to eat out.
[00:12:22] Sometimes we have to allow that it's what we choose that can make the difference.
[00:12:29] That is a talk for another day though folks. We will talk on that later.
[00:12:35] The goal is also relevant, preparing meals at home, reducing your fast food or eating out intake can help promote health.
[00:12:44] And then it's a time bound goal. We have this goal set for a one month time period. So maybe we start with cooking dinner one night a week for an entire week and then we increase it to two nights a week for an entire week and then we increase it to three nights a week for an entire week. And that's how we can continue to add on to our goals.
[00:13:09] Now, again, we want your goals to be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time bound. So moving into 2026, I want everybody to look at the New Year's resolutions that you are starting to plan in your head and I want you to write them out on a piece of paper. And then I want you to look at that goal and figure out how you can turn it into a smart goal.
[00:13:40] This is going to help you achieve that goal, to help you maintain the changes, the habit changes that we are trying to set.
[00:13:48] Because these goals are not intended to be quick, overnight quick changes. It's not about how fast we do it, but about the progress and it's about the consistency and the dedication we have to that goal. Now, I hope everybody has a wonderful, wonderful holiday and a happy New Year. If I don't see you again until the New Year, everybody have a wonderful night and we will see you all later. Bye.
