Shift Your Focus to Stick to Your Goals

Why your health and wellness is a priority

It’s that time of year again. We set out to accomplish our lofty fitness and nutrition goals just to watch them fizzle out quickly. You’ve been here before. You lose motivation. What if I told you it’s not motivation you need to consistently work towards your goals – day after day, year after year? Instead, it is your understanding of why you are working towards these goals in the first place. You need to clarify who you are, the work that you are called to, and the role fitness and nutrition play within your life. Then keep your mind focused on why you prioritize it.

You want to eat nutritious food most of the time, so you set out on a new eating plan at the start of the year and capitalize on that “New Year, New You” motivation. One thing we can be sure of with motivation – it doesn’t stick around for long. It comes and goes, and if your commitment is linked to your motivation, you will find yourself starting… and restarting… and restarting… and never reaching the goal you set out to achieve.

It’s hard to stick to those small, seemingly unimportant goals when life is full of more important things demanding your attention. Your family needs your love and service. Your job needs your time and expertise. Your house needs to be cleaned. The food needs to be cooked. We can keep adding to the list of life’s demands, but we know them. In the face of what’s required of you in life, where do fitness and nutrition fall? How do you prioritize working towards goals that don’t seem essential?

Before you set your goals, or maybe just before you toss them out of the window, consider the outcome you want. Are you running a 5k to have completed a 5k? Are you focused on your nutrition because you want to lose weight? If those are the only outcomes you are focused on, these things will not take priority in your life. When you look at the big picture of your life, having accomplished fitness goals or hitting your goal weight will be very insignificant events. Running your first race or completing a nutrition challenge doesn’t define who you are. So, let’s start there. What defines you?

Who you are

You were created by a great and good God who knows you and loves you. You are defined by who He is and who He says you are. This has nothing to do with your decisions or accomplishments. It doesn’t change when you struggle or succeed. It’s not swayed by the circumstances in life trying to define you. You are His. That defines your value. He has called you to a life of love and ministry. To love others as He has loved you and to teach them to obey all that He has commanded you. Need more good news? He doesn’t leave you alone in this work – He is always with you.

What you do 

While you are doing the work that He’s set before you, the daily decisions that you make affect you immediately, long-term, and will affect the people around you. While you are not in complete control of our health and wellness, you are in control of the decisions that you make each day. Those things will have an impact on you – today and in the days to come. When you clean up your diet and introduce more activity to your life, you’ll experience benefits pretty quickly. You will likely experience better sleep, more energy, clear thinking, and a regulated mood, among many others. With consistency over a long time, you can decrease the risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and certain cancers. Your quality of life now and in the years to come is significantly impacted by the little decisions you make today regarding your fitness and nutrition. 

Why do you do it

Who you are and the work you are called to do shapes your why. The value of setting and accomplishing small attainable goals- day in and day out – is that they affect the big things in your life. Prioritizing your health and wellness today will affect your ability to continue doing the work God has prepared for you. It’s not the most important part of your day, but it equips you to focus on the most important things to the best of your ability. Long-term consistency will transform how you spend the rest of your life. You don’t prioritize these things because of the goal itself. Your goal is not to be fit or to weigh a certain weight or to have accomplished a certain thing. Your goal is to be able to obey God in whatever He’s called you to to the best of your ability. Be a good steward of this one body that you’ve been given so that it will be used well. Set those short-term goals – be fit, hit a goal weight and stay there, accomplish a fitness endeavor – but keep your mind fixed on your why.

As you set your goals for this year consider your why and keep your focus on that big picture. Understand who you are and what you’ve been called to do and let every goal and every decision that you make fall in line with those truths.

What is one fitness or nutrition-related goal you are working towards right now and why are you doing it? I would love to hear about it and cheer you on!

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