Creating a Plan for Your 2023 Health Goals as a Mom
Listen on:
Apple | Spotify
We are almost to a new year and, at least for me, this is the time of year I start to PLAN for the upcoming year in ALL areas of my life — family, travel, business, AND my health goals!
So we're focusing in on that today — creating a plan for your health goals in 2023 in a way that will help you stay MOTIVATED and frustration-free no matter the challenges the year brings!
It's vital to put some thought into HOW you're going to get to where you want to be a year from now, so let's talk about how to do that.
Decide on an overarching goal for the year
Do not make it a S.M.A.R.T. Goal
If you go back to episode 10, I basically tear apart the S.M.A.R.T. Goal framework because, while it has it's place, not ALL goals need to be S.M.A.R.T. and this is one of them
This goal is one that doesn't necessarily have to be "attained" this year, it could be a long term aim
This could be weight related, how you feel, or centered around a specific pillar of weight loss and how you SHOW UP in that area
Consider everything else
What do you have going on this year?
Take a 1 page calendar or a paper split into 4 sections for each quarter of the year and put in…
any travel
notes about what you going on in your job or within your home
then plug in any milestones or event dates for your journey
Once you've done that, you now have a picture of what the pace of your year is, when you'll have TIME and energy and mental capacity to pour more into your journey
You can see and use my One Page Year Planning Template here!
From there, you make your plan
Now I'm not giving you a set plan today because your journey and your overarching goal are both so unique to you!
This why cookie cutter plans or program after program or diet after diet DON'T WORK.
That approach doesn't into consideration what you want to prioritize this year and it doesn't factor in your life.
We too often compartmentalize our journeys from our work from our lives, so no wonder it always feels like we're failing at one instead of weaving them together from the get go.
When you make a PLAN for your health, start with making your plan for the year starting with what is most important to you, which I assume is the relationships in your life and being present there… THEN move onto your health.
I want to give you the template I use every year to do this exact process!
it'll be your big picture plan and it will help you show up the WHOLE year with intention instead of getting stuck in the drag of the day to day!
Because when you feel stuck is when your journey starts to feel mundane and bland and you lose motivation.
When you have a big pic plan for your health goals for the YEAR, you're able to stay focused and EXCITED about what you're doing, where you're going, and HOW you're doing it!
You'll feel balanced and excited.
Get your FREE Plan for the Year Template!
Weave your journey into your life instead of compartmentalizing everything!
FULL TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00] We are almost to a new year, and at least for. This is the time of year that I start to plan for the upcoming year in all areas of my life, family, travel, business, and my health goals. So we're focusing in on that today, creating a plan for your health goals in 2023. Hey, mama. Welcome to the Tough Love Mom podcast.
I know you're here because you're ready to get consistent and finally lose that weight, and you're not afraid of a little tough love. You know what to do to lose weight, but following through on those things feels impossible. You wish you could just feel like your strong, confident self again and want to be a good example for your little ones, but you get thrown off by mom guilt and the unpredictability of motherhood.
It's frustra. Taking on your journey postpartum is hard, but it's not impossible. Hey, I'm Liz, and I've been where you are. I gained a lot of weight in my pregnancies, 90 pounds [00:01:00] and then 60 pounds. I needed to lose that weight to take control of my health, and honestly just wanted to feel like myself again with a sustainable approach to weight loss.
Simple consistency in working on my mindset. I lost it all in just over a year, both times, and I'm here to help you do the same. I believe that we have an ingrained ability to figure out what we need to do, make it happen, and do it in a way that AWS the world. If you're ready to stop falling off the wagon, create solid, routine and healthy habits.
And finally, feel your best inside and out, all while enjoying Dino Nuggets on your salad. You are in the right place. We're about to transform your journey, my friend. Get pumped up. It is tough love time.
The simplest way to make and follow through on a plan for your health goals next year is by joining Starting Point School. What starting point school is. Step by step. One habit at a time process that you will implement with [00:02:00] intention and accountability the first three to six months of the year. So by the time that summer rolls around, you really feel like living, quote, living a healthy life.
Whatever that means to you is really just who you are. It's just how you show up in the world, and there's no easier way to make that happen and follow through on the plan that you make to reach your goals by them by doing starting point. You're gonna learn how to identify which one habit to start with first, how to stay consistent with it and when to build on that habit with a new one.
So you can create sustainability in your health and fitness journey and not fall off the wagon. Again, this is for the mom. If you're the, if you're like the type of mom who you're getting back into your health and fitness journey, maybe you've tried a couple times and it felt overwhelming, or you, you fell off the wagon like hardcore, you know, really hit the.
and you just wanna do it right this time. You wanna be consistent and you wanna lose weight the right way. You want it to stay off. You want this to feel sustainable. You want it to feel like something that you can [00:03:00] do, no matter how difficult your circumstances are as a mom, right? Like we know this is a roller coaster ride, and whether you're at top or the bottom of that roller coaster, you wanna make sure it feels like what I'm doing, workouts, nutrition, it feels sustainable.
I don't feel like I'm trying to hold onto all these different crazy habit. Even though life's really hard and it's just stressing me out, like I don't want your health and fitness journey to stress you out. And that's why I created starting point School. It's where we fix habits and make your journey sustainable.
And you're also getting accountability for myself and all of the moms that will do it alongside you. So if you want to feel confident in how you're walking out your journey, this is how you. Go to starting point school.co to get on the wait list because doors will open super soon and you wanna get in there before doors close on January 7th.
So get on the wait list starting point school.co and I'll see it in there so you can really make next year, the year that you follow through on the plan that you make. Now, whether or not you do [00:04:00] starting point school, it is vital to put some thought into how you're gonna get where you wanna be a year from now.
Like how do you wanna feel in December of 2020? Do you wanna be in the same place? Feel like, wow, I really didn't change much when it came to how I approach food and how I think about my workouts and how I show up for my workouts? Or do you wanna be in a totally different place? Well, if you want to be in a different place, you gotta put some thought into it.
So let's talk about how to do that. The first thing I want you to do is create an overarching goal for the year. Now you have some freedom here cuz I'm not gonna tell. , uh, to make a smart goal, which is great because those are kind of restrictive. They're very specific, they have their place. But I'm not telling you to make a smart goal right now.
I want you to go all the way back to episode 10. Actually, I'll link it below in the show notes for you. But I basically tear apart the smart, smart goal framework, , because I do believe it has its place. But not all goals need to be smart. Um, and this is one of them, this [00:05:00] overarching goal for the year. This goal is one that doesn't have to be attained necessarily in 2023.
It could be a long-term aim that you have or like a way of being, if that makes sense. So I'll give you an example. Mine next year is to be as strong as I've ever been as a mom, while being able to go out and run six miles if I want to. So in like technical terms, an optimal. Of strength and endurance is what I'm aiming for next year.
Like for you, it could be weight related, it could be about how you feel, it could be centered around a specific pillar of weight loss, fitness, nutrition, or routine. Um, and how you show up in that area. So step one is simply deciding on your overarching goal for the year. And like I said, mine's one, that it might not necessarily be attained this.
The example I gave for myself, but it's something I'll definitely make a lot of [00:06:00] progress on this year, and maybe I attain it the next year or whatnot. I'll probably attain it next this coming year. But you're creating something a little more generic and it's really what you're aiming for. Like big picture, something you want in your journey.
The next step after doing that, you're gonna pivot completely away from your journey. Okay? We're gonna like forget our health and fitness journey for a minute, and you're gonna consider everything. , what do you have going on this year? So how I do this is I take literally a piece of computer paper and I create four sections and I put in, so and and I create, it's the four quarters.
I didn't even know what quarters were. Of the year until like a few years ago, , that's how I roll guys. I'm just looking at living the life month by month. And then I was like, oh, quarters, this is great. Makes me feel a little bit better about how I can flow through the year. So I take my piece of paper, four sections for the four quarters of the year, and I put each of the three months in it.
So month by month I [00:07:00] go through and I put in all of our travel all the times we're gonna be out of town. And obviously when I'm out of town, I know that my health journey will be. with, you know, how much I have to be a little more flexible and how I'm showing up and how I'm training and working out. And I also take into consideration, you know, what I, what different seasons of the podcast in my business that I'll be in.
And then, like I said, I make notes about what I'll have going on in my business, projects, launches, whatever. All that stuff goes in next after travels and after that, I plug in any milestones. So, Weight loss is part of your overarching goal. It could be what you're aiming for by certain dates, if that's how you roll.
If you wanna pick, put like weight loss milestones at certain points throughout the. . If it's with habits, then you could deem, certain quarters have certain focuses like a nutrition focus one quarter and then a workout co focus another quarter. You know, you decide how this [00:08:00] goes. This is very flexible and it needs to be personalized to you.
If you have races or anything like that, you put those dates in there as well. I've got things like a half marathon and the Goggins four by four by 48 and a Spartan race and 75 hard. So I put those on there based on two things. One, when they're scheduled, and two when they will work around my life.
Because remember we forgot in the step two, we forgot about our health and fitness journey for a minute, and factored in travel stuff you've got going on with your family. Anything with work, if you work outside the home or from your home. Then you went and planned in things for your health journey. It should be a priority.
Yes, but you know, family comes first and in some seasons work will come first too. So it's just good to factor all these things together instead of com compartmentalizing it. Now, once you've done that, you have a picture of what the pace of your year will look like and what different [00:09:00] parts of the. Will feel like what kind of pace you'll be.
Can you sprint during certain seasons? Can you really go hard in your journey? Because life's not as busy, or there's seasons when life is really busy. So you're gonna have to kind of be more flexible with your health and fitness journey. You will have a picture of that literally on your piece of paper, and you'll know when you have time and energy and mental capacity to pour more into your journey now.
And from there, you make your plan. Now I just hope this gives you the opportunity to opportu. To go, huh? Like I've never looked at it that way because I think what we often do is compartmentalize things. Like I said earlier, we say, okay, I've got life, but then I also need to work out and eat healthy. And then I've also got all these work obligations or you know, extracurricular obligations and we don't try to weave them together.
So when you can take a step back and look at the whole year and. , you know, let the pieces, the sizes of the pieces of your pie shift throughout [00:10:00] the year, instead of trying to keep 'em all equal, it just feels so much better. And you'll go through the year knowing, you know, I'm showing up the best I can in each area right now because I thought ahead.
And it really doesn't allow room for guilt when you approach things this way. So like I said, from there, you make your plan. Now, I'm not giving you a plan today because your journey is unique and I think. Another issue we have is we say, oh, well just gimme some gimme workouts and how to eat, and I'll just do it.
But we're not taking into account how our life will factor in what we've got going on outside of our own journeys and how that impacts what we want to be doing in our, you know, our workouts and our nutrition. So I'm not gonna give you a plan because you have to come up with it on your own. And I'm not telling you to come up with workouts.
I'm not telling you to, you know, figure out every single morsel of food you're supposed to eat. , when it comes to the pace and the season and how you're training the environment you're working out in. Is it at home? Can you go to a gym? [00:11:00] Will your life allow for it? In that season, when I had kids, I had to start working out at home because logistically, with my husband deploying and going on work trips to different places in the country, like I did not have the flexibility with two children or even just one, and then pregnant to be able to leave the house to go work out.
It just wouldn't have worked. So you have to factor those things. , and that's why I'm not giving you a plan, because I think that would only hinder you. And my guess also is that your overarching goal is really unique to you as well. And you have to look at your life, this plan that you've come up with in this, these four different sections of your paper, and all of that is unique to you.
And that's why cookie cutter plans and programs after programs or diet after diet will not. because that approach doesn't take into consideration what you want to prioritize this year. It doesn't factor in your life. And when we're compartmentalizing too much, it's gonna feel like we're failing at [00:12:00] something instead of weaving them together from the beginning, from the start.
So when you make a plan for your health, start with making your plan for the year, starting with what is most important to you, which I assume is the relationships in your life and being present in. So start with planning in all that family stuff you've got first and you know, work obligations, whatnot, extracurriculars, whether it's church or hobbies that you have, and then move on to your health.
I want to give you the template that I use every year, um, to do this exact process because I know we'll only serve you. So if you need to go back to the beginning of this episode and listen through after you go download. Piece of paper this, this template that I literally have used the past three years to plan out my year and my journey and weave it all together so I don't feel guilt when I'm not going as hard on my journey as I did a few months ago because life is different.
So it'll be a rough draft, a big, you know, big picture [00:13:00] plan that you create. , but it will help you show up the whole year with intention instead of getting stuck in this drag of the day-to-day and then feeling guilty cuz you couldn't work out for 45 minutes today, even though you could do that three months ago.
You're like, why isn't this working? Well maybe cuz your life's a little busier than it was three months ago, and you'll be able to recognize that in January instead of not realizing it until three months later after the fact. Okay. , when your journey starts to feel mundane and bland, you're gonna lose motivation, and that's because you're showing up in the day-today and you didn't think ahead.
So when you have this big picture plan that you can go download literally right now for your health goals for the year, you're gonna be able to stay focused and excited about what you're doing and that motivation won't be needed. You know, you're gonna be excited about where you're going and how you're.
You'll feel balanced and excited the whole year. So if you want that head to the link in the [00:14:00] show. Below to grab your free copy totally free. Like you plug in your email and your name and you straight to the pdf. Not even send you an email. It goes straight to, I'll just open up the PDF for you and you can get to planning your 2023 health goals the right way.
If you have questions about any of it, feel free to email us at the email link below as well. It's support at the tough love mom.com. But in the meantime, I want you to download, Plan for the year so you can take into account your life and all the things that are important to you, and then weave your health goal, your overarching health goal, and the plan that you make for it throughout the year into those other priorities.
Because there's no need to compartmentalize your journey when there is a way to weave it all together. So go download that plan for the. And get to planning your health goals the right way before you go. Thank you for spending this time with me on the Tough Love Mom podcast. If [00:15:00] this episode encouraged you in any way, the number one way you can thank me is to leave a review letting me know how this show has impacted you.
Then send this episode to another mom friend, or. Take a screenshot, post it on social media and tag me so I can personally thank you for helping me on this journey to impact thousands of moms. I'm so grateful to be on this journey with you, sister. Until next time, get after it.
