If you’re living with chronic leg, back, or neck pain, sometimes it can feel like there is no relief in sight. You’ve lost track of how long you’ve been hurt and you can’t imagine what life was like without planning your day around your pain. Like most people with chronic pain, you’re probably working with health care professionals to relieve the pain. As you manage your pain, it’s important that you set goals and celebrate your progress along the way. Setting and achieving goals can be an invaluable motivator to a pain-free life.
To help you start off the new year right, we’ve compiled some tips for setting goals:
- Ask yourself three questions:
a) What do you want to get back to doing?
b) What do you feel like you’re able to do?
c) What can you realistically commit to doing to achieve your goal?
- Make your goal realistic. Set a goal that makes sense for where you are in your back pain management and mobility. Sometimes people set goals that are so aggressive that they can actually be discouraging. Think of achievable goals. Remember, there’s nothing wrong with accomplishing a goal ahead of schedule!
- Set a time frame. All good goals should have a completion date. Add check-in dates from start to finish. This will help you track your progress as you work toward achieving your goals.
- Make goals specific and measurable. Simply put, your goals should be written in a way that is simple, direct, and easily measured. For example, “Go on walks outside,” is too vague and hard to measure. A goal like this should be written as, “Go on two walks, longer than one mile each, every week this year.”
- Identify obstacles and solutions. Take time to brainstorm all the things that could prevent you from working on a goal: work, vacation, finances, personal schedule. Then think of ways you can work through those obstacles. Working through solutions ahead of time will help you overcome obstacles when they pop up unexpectedly.
- Think about resources. What resources do you have to help you reach your goal? What resources do you need? When can you get them? How would you get them? Again, thinking these through in advance will help you plan for success.
Think through these steps. Then write them down. Once you’ve written each of your goals, with their unique obstacles, solutions, and resources, get to work! Be sure to review your goals periodically, to make sure that you’re on track to accomplish them before their deadline. If you’re having challenges with a goal, this goal-setting exercise is a good way to readjust your plan.
Best wishes with your goals in the new year!