Go! Action and relapse prevention - Alex Gough, Luge

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At some point, you will either meet your goal and need to plan for a progression of the goal, or you’ll encounter barriers that prevent you from meeting your goal. Here are some tips on relapse prevention from Alex Gough:

• Set small goals or milestones for each week to focus on for training and/or competing
• Work on something weekly that builds towards the bigger overall goal
• Setting short term goals creates tangible marks to work toward
• Build the weekly goal setting into your routine, make it a habit
• Be honest with yourself about where you are at and work from there

Morneau Shepell Wellness & Fitness Corner

Progressing or regressing your goal

You’ve created an overall wellness goal, set SMART goals to support the bigger goal: this has built the framework for your action plan. You’re on the path to meeting your goals and are maintaining the habits or behaviours you wanted to incorporate.  At some point, you will either meet your initial SMART goal and need to plan for a progression of your goal, or you’ll encounter barriers that prevent you from meeting your goal; these can range from illness, increased responsibilities, lack of resources such as your favourite fitness instructor no longer teaches your class, etc. It could even be that your action plan wasn’t realistic or attainable at this time.

This is very common in setting wellness goals. There are a number of factors you do not have control over but you do have control over how you manage the obstacles you encounter. With a sound strategy to navigate around obstacles, you can continue to make progress towards your overall wellness goal, even if the SMART goals and action plan change.

If a barrier arises, the key is to reassess your overall wellness goal. Is it still relevant? If it is, the first step would be to modify your action plan. This means that you would scale the goal back to an action that will keep you on track, but that would also be attainable. If you are injured, a change in your strategy would be to work with a physiotherapist in order to continue to progress towards your goal. If the issue is time, reducing the frequency or duration of exercise would be a positive regression of the goal or action plan. Once you’ve developed a new, more attainable goal, you can eventually progress towards the original goal you set.

On the other hand, you might have set a very attainable goal and found that in a short amount of time, you have met your goal. This is common when the objective is fitness because consistent effort often brings results. If this is the case, it would be time to increase the effort which can include changing any of the following: intensity, frequency, duration or type of exercise.  Your objective would be to continue to find ways to challenge yourself and to progress through a series of shorter term goals so that you can attain the larger, milestone-type goals.

The exercise  below will provide a framework for you to get started on managing your goal and possible barriers when they arise.

To progress a goal:

The goal I have met is: ______________________________________________________________

I am going to increase my effort with this goal by: ______________________________________________________________

My updated SMART goal is: ______________________________________________________________

To regress a goal:

The barrier(s) I am facing in meeting my overall wellness goal is: ______________________________________________________________

The resources I have to manage these obstacles are: ______________________________________________________________

My strategy for overcoming my barriers is: ______________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________

My updated SMART goal is: ______________________________________________________________