Setting effective goals begins with clarity and specificity. It’s not enough to aim for broad objectives like losing weight or being healthier. Defining what success truly looks like such as losing 10 pounds, keeping it off, and making the process sustainable can transform how goals are approached and achieved. This perspective ensures that the steps taken align with long-term results rather than temporary fixes.

Sustainable change requires integrating new habits into daily life. Whether it’s adjusting a diet, starting an exercise routine, or reevaluating priorities, small, manageable shifts can create lasting impact. By linking goals to meaningful outcomes, such as improved health or spending quality time with family, the effort invested becomes worthwhile. True progress happens when goals are aligned with a deeper sense of purpose and practicality.

Highlights of the Podcast

00:04 – The Importance of Clear Goals

02:28 – Defining the Real Goal

03:52 – Sustainable Lifestyle Changes

07:45 – The Reward of Achieving Goals

10:27 – Long-Term Motivation and Commitment

12:50 – Final Thoughts on Goals

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:00:04] So we’re talking about goals. And this is one of those things that when we do goals calls, we don’t always go super deep in this. But this is one of those things when you’re setting your goals, this is kind of how you want to do it. People come in all the time and they’re like, We talked about the Halloween like, I want to be healthier. What does that mean to you? But even the really simple example of I want to lose 10 pounds like. That’s not your goal. But all right, we can start with that and be like, No, that’s my goal. I want to lose 10 pounds. Like, okay, well, if you lost 10 pounds today and you gained it back tomorrow, would you feel satisfied that you hit your goal? We were like, Well, no, it’s okay. So your goal isn’t to lose 10 pounds or goals, to lose 10 pounds and keep it off. Yeah. Okay, cool. All right, so the goals now change. The goal is to, you know, keep off the 10 pounds. You know that we lose. Cool. Is it, you know, you want to give up all the things? Make it really, really hard. No, I’d like to make it easy as possible. All right. So you now want to lose 10 pounds? Do you want to keep it off? You want to make it as functional in your life as possible? Fantastic. Okay. So that’s that’s kind of where the goal is.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:01:11] And so the reason that’s important is because where we aim is or where our goal is, is where we go. And so if we have the idea that we want to lose 10 pounds, we want to keep it off. And we want to make it functionally easier in our life. That’s going to drastically set up the the path of how we’re going to get there differently. Right. Because then the only way to do that is to really sit down. All right. We have to make lifestyle changes to accommodate this goal. And the reason is because once you understand that, it makes all the things you have to do a lot easier. Setting goals properly can really, really, really. Put things in perspective and change the way that you’re going to. You’re going to attack things. I learned this lesson really, really well from my my wife’s or our how we want to say it. OBJ And when my wife was pregnant with her first child. Her name is Dr. Weber and she was actually a phenomenal everyone. Really, really awesome. I loved her as a person. So she’s a great doctor and we’re in there and she’s like, What’s the goal? And we went, We want to have a natural childbirth. And she was like, That’s that’s terrible. She’s like, That is not your goal. And we were I was a little offended. I was like, What? Like, that is completely my goal. Don’t be all, you know, Pooh poohing my idea of a natural birth.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:02:28] And she is Your goal is healthy, happy baby. Healthy, happy mama. She is how we get to that goal. She was like, now depends on how we want to proceed. And she was like, But she’s like, It’s important we understand that. And it was it’s hypercritical that we understood that because it’s just for my wife actually was the worst possible pregnancy ever until we had our second kid and it was worse. So but it was miserable. And so the idea that, you know, our actual goal and you say that you’re like, Well, duh. But when you state it as the goal is healthy, happy baby, healthy, happy mommy, and you’re like, we’re going to do the natural path. That it’s easier for you to recognize. We can and now will leave the natural path and come over here and do something that’s different. Because again, our goal wasn’t to do this naturally. Our goal was to have a healthy, happy baby, healthy, happy mommy. So if we need to abandon the natural path, we can because it’s not really our goal. And that’s why was so important. And we’re some of the things we’re like, crap, that’s how that goes. But that’s the thing, right? So, you know, if it’s one of those things, you’re like, you know, we’re using the 10 pounds as an example. This isn’t the greatest example for all these things. But, you know, it’s one of those things where it’s like, okay, now that I understand that my goal isn’t to lose ten, 10 pounds, my goal is to lose 10 pounds, keep it off and make it part of my life. So it’s easy. Great. Okay.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:03:52] What you have to understand for that is that there’s going to be work involved in each one of those verticals, right? And so you understand there’s a little bit more work going on. And so we’re okay, we’re gonna change our diet. But when we change our diet, we’re going to have to find a way to change our diet forever because we want to keep it off forever. Because again, the what we were doing ahead of time put us where we are. If we don’t change the behaviors, we don’t change the things that we were doing that got us where we are. We’re always going to come back to where we are is it’s. Yeah. And all this seems so obvious when you say it, but this is one of the things that you kind of have to walk through. So you go, All right, I now recognize if I want change that lasts a long time, I have to change my actions that deliver me to where I’m going. Correct. But you then said, okay, but I also want to make the smallest disruption in my life possible. Fantastic. Here’s what’s going to happen. This is why I always ask people, What are your ten favorite foods or your five foods you never want to get? As long as you can have their favorite foods, you’re going to be sustainable.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:04:55] The way that we go about getting those favorite foods is going to be a little bit different. That’s the change we’re actually making that gets us there. Sustainability of our health, the sustainability of our lose the 10 pounds and keep it off. So the work you’re doing for all of these things is just changing the way that you that you diet and exercise. If you don’t exercise at all right now it’s a little bit of a pain if you don’t make things at all, it’s a little bit of pain. So the more you change those things, the easier you adapt them into your life, the easier it is for not to be a huge change in your life. The big thing is that, you know what I see on that issue and you can see the problems that come up with that is that people have a horror, terrified idea of cooking that’s going to be too hard. They don’t think they can do it. And the foods can be terrible. They think that, you know, it’s going to take too much time. And none of those things are really accurate. It does take all those things, but you’re going to be fine. It’s not that hard. It really isn’t that hard. You can make pretty, pretty, pretty tasty stuff and mess it up pretty bad. So bits of the recipe pretty bad. So it’s not not that big of a deal. But that’s the type of thing you have to do. You have to say, okay, what am I going to do? Okay, I’m going to I want to go to this place here. I’m here. I want to go to here. And so what you have to understand is that when you change from where you are to where you want to go. Where you want to go is better than where you are. Because why would you ever decide I’m going to do worse than I am now? Right.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:06:28] So any time that you’re going to go better than you are, there’s going to be work required to get from point A to point B, That’s just how it is. If you want to get up and walk out of the room. The work you have to do is stand up and walk out of the room. If you want to have a healthier diet, you’re going to have to change what your diet is. That’s that’s that’s where it is. And so there’s going to be effort and there’s going to be unknown and there’s going be struggle in the process of changing from point A to point B. Now, once you get to point B, it’s one of those things where if you integrate those things into your life. Easily the new rate will stay at point B for quite a while. So it’s one of those things where that’s that’s where the that’s where the the work comes in is figuring out how do we move from where we are to where we want to go and integrate into her life that we’re doing right now. And that’s kind of where a lot of the coaching allow the you know, that type of stuff comes in. It is really, really fun for me. To start working with people and you give them a little bit of peace of something and they master it. This is this is what I talk about, like my favorite day in the world, working with peoples when they come back and they go, Hey, you know how when we started, I said, I didn’t really need a six pack? I’m like, Yeah, well, what’s the plan look like if I did want the six pack? Because what that tells me is that we, you know, this person had some original goals.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:07:45] They’ve done a bunch of work, they’ve gotten better, they’ve seen the results, and they realize the work they put in was worth what they got out of it. And then they say, okay, well, if I have the thought, if I work a little bit harder, can I have the things I’ve always really wanted? But I’ve never really, you know, admitted to wanting because I recognized how much work was involved. And so that’s always really fun. But, you know, and I get to see it, you know, on a almost daily basis, which is fun. But, you know, that’s kind of how this thing plays out. So when you’re setting your goals, be really specific in where you want to go and how you want to get there, because a lot of times you’ll be like, I want to go to this thing. And then you start fleshing it out and you look over the whole thing and you’re like, Maybe I don’t want the six pack right now. Maybe. Maybe I just want, you know. To lose some weight and keep it off. Great. So now we’ve done this. You’re willing to do this much work. And so when you get there and you and this is this is how it always is, right? You do. You do about 80% of the work you’ve got to do to get anywhere you want to go in the first step. Right. Because again, we’re using the lose 10 pounds as your example, you know, if you start. If you’re willing to change your diet and you actually change your diet and you start cooking some stuff, you start doing some stuff differently. That’s the hardest part.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:09:01] You know, tweaking the diet once you’ve got it and once you’ve got the preservatives out and you’ve got some of the trash out, you get the sugar out and you figured out how to make stuff and how to get stuff. Tweaking that diet from, you know, just getting healthier and losing a little weight to really focusing it in is not nearly as difficult on the person as going from doing nothing to doing something. 0 to 1 is always the biggest step forward. So, you know, that’s always the biggest thing. So if you can accomplish that, you’re great. But that’s kind of the thing is, if we can kind of really figure out here’s my actual goal, here’s the things that surround my goal and the other things, you can start looking at it from a from a value perspective of why is that goal beneficial to me? So one of the things that, you know, people ask me all the time is like, you know, why is it that you work out every day? Why do you take the stuff? Why do you do all this stuff? It’s because I recognize that my health is important long term. So it’s important to obviously what I do, but my kids are ten and 12 and I’m 45, 44. And so I want to be around to play with my grandkids. And in order to do that, I’ve got to have, you know, my health has got to be alive, but I have to be functional to be able to be move around and pick stuff up, you know, do stuff with them and play with them, wrestle around with them. And so you have to you know, you have to do these things every day.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:10:27] And so once you kind of understand where your goal really is and where you really want to go and you understand the things that you’re going to require to get there. It becomes easier to maintain that goal. So, you know, that’s that’s one of the things when you set goals, you want to make sure that you set them. You want to make sure that you flesh them out and you understand the depth and the the actuality, what you want to do. Because like I said, you don’t want to lose 10 pounds. You want to lose 10 pounds. You want to keep it off. And you want to make the keeping it off part of your life so that it’s not that that much of a hassle to you. Right. Because that’s actually what your goal is. You know, very few people are like, I want to lose 10 pounds and gain it back in a week from now. That’s not true. I don’t think anybody’s ever come in and told me I want to lose 10 pounds and then let it all come back on two weeks later. Right. It’s just not something I hear. Maybe that’s your goal if you’re trying to make weight for an event. Different story. But, you know, that’s a good thing because again, your goals differ. You don’t care about your weight. You care about, you know, your event, your bodybuilding, your wrestling or whatever your event is that requires weight.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:11:31] So that’s kind of when we start looking at goals. That’s the thing that more specific we can make our goals, the more precise and the more functional we can make them, the better it’s going to be. Because the big thing about goals is that when you set a goal that you’re actually working on, your goals become your your aim and your aim dictates where you go. So, you know, if it’s really a goal that’s really important to you, it will change you. And that’s the whole point. But you have to understand that change is always energy requires energy, and it’s a pain in the ass and it’s never fun. So the result of it is fun, but getting there is usually, usually painful. So, you know, if you recognize those things, you will also ultimately start making better mental changes. So that’s one of the things to keep in mind when you’re setting goals. I’ve got some more questions of questions at Chalmers Wellness.com or drop in the comments. Thanks for your time.

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Dr. Matt Chalmers

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