Set Your Summer Goals

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Whether yours is busy or relaxed, summer has a way of upending routines and tossing out challenges. How to deal? Be flexible! The key to enjoying the season is to adapt your goals as needed and keep them simple and doable. Your WW Freestyle weekly explores how to set right-for-you goals. Here's a deeper dive into the thinking and science behind them.

Choose your path

What does summer hold? Will you be fielding family, attending weddings, maybe traveling? Think about what’s on your calendar, as well as how you want to spend the season. Would it make sense to dial back your weight-loss efforts a bit, or focus on maintaining? You might choose to shift gears and focus on cultivating wellness, mindfulness, or a sense of adventure. (Or you could even just set a goal to rock your summer shorts!)Once you’ve decided where you want to go, you can create your step-by-step path to get there.

Details, details

While no one wants to get caught up in minutiae, it helps to drill down on just what you are aiming for. Sure, you could leave it at "I'm going to eat well and exercise this summer"—but goals that go no farther than doing your best don't tend to lead to the results that more specific ones do.

Using the 4Ws (What. When. Where. With whom.) can help you customize your goal so it both fits you better and feels more real.

Small is powerful

Narrow your focus when you set goals. Keep ‘em small. Walking an extra five minutes three days a week may not seem significant, but it’s much more realistic to achieve (and it’s more than you’re doing now, right?). And stick with one or two of those bite-size goals a week—any more than that and you’re likely to be overwhelmed and lose focus. You can always set additional goals once you reach those previous ones.

Cheer yourself on

Remember to celebrate a goal you've nailed—it's not just to make you feel good (though that's worthwhile, too). Acknowledging what you’ve done can boost your self-efficacy, your confidence that you can take on new tasks and behaviours. Even better, that mental pat on the back makes it more likely that you will stick with the behaviour you’ve adopted.