When creating a plan to help you accomplish your SMART Goal, don’t be afraid to get creative. Brainstorming to kick-start the planning process can be helpful. Consider asking yourself a few questions and free-writing your answers on a piece of paper. You can then go back and organize your thoughts. This process might look like the following:
Let’s use the same SMART goal example we went over last time, “I will begin following some of the balanced plate principles by filling half my plate with fruits and/or vegetables during at least two of my meals every day for the next month to help increase my vitamin and mineral intake.”
Your brainstorming session might look like:
- What will I need access to so that I can accomplish my goal? Fruits and vegetables readily available in all forms (like we discussed previously). It’s a good idea to take it a step further though. A few other things to consider could be having standard-size plates, divided Tupperware containers, and a journal for meal planning.
- How will this goal fit into my daily life? Besides picking the times/meals of the day where you are more likely to be successful, you can also restructure how you portion your meals on your plate. For example, you can fill your plate with fruits and/or vegetables before other foods to ensure these foods make up 1/2 of your meals. You can also eat your fruits and vegetables first.
- What barriers might I face and how can I overcome them? If you’re running late, you might opt for less healthy items that are pre-packaged. You can prevent eating pre-packaged food by prepping food in advance to have healthy options readily available. You could do this by prepping and portioning out foods likes fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, or whole-grain crackers. Also, if you’re eating out, you could consider ordering 1 or 2 vegetables as your side items or you could start off with a side salad as an appetizer.