Goal Setting to Improve Your Health in Retirement

Whether you’ve been active all your life or you’re hoping that retirement will give you more time to be less sedentary, you can set goals after retirement to improve your health. While some people may think of retirement as a time to slow down, older adults still run races, sail boats, practice yoga and plenty more. The tips below can help you set and reach your goals.

Make Specific Goals

Do you want to be able to take your grandchildren hiking? Are you hoping to lower your stress levels? Perhaps you just want to improve your quality of life. These are all excellent things to aim for, but would you be surprised to learn that they don’t really work well as goals? The problem is that they are not very specific. What counts as having less stress or a better quality of life? Do you want to be able to take easy days hikes of a few miles, or do you want to go backpacking? The more specific and measurable your goals are, the better your chances will be of achieving them.

Set Up a Reward

Reaching a goal is its own reward. However, it doesn’t help to dangle an additional carrot for yourself in the form of a second, more tangible reward. Ideally, this reward should be related to your goal. For example, if you’re hoping to learn how to sail, you could buy a boat once you have reached a certain level of expertise. Of course, if your reward is a big-ticket item, you might not have budgeted for it in retirement—or have you? If you own a life insurance policy, you may not need it any longer if your children are grown, and you could potentially get cash for it. Working with life insurance settlement companies can help you get the most competitive payouts, and you can find out in seconds how much you could get.

Make a Map

The next step is to make a roadmap from here to where you want to be. For example, maybe you want to cut back on your stress so that you are sleeping a regular seven or eight hours each night. This might mean making a list of lifestyle changes that would help lead to stress reduction, such as making time for friends and hobbies. If your goal is a physical one, list the smaller steps that will get you to the point where you want to be.

Go Slow

Don’t try to do too much at once. Even if you have a lot of different goals, try to focus on just one at a time and one major lifestyle change at a time. Big shifts almost always guarantee failure because they are unsustainable. Work up to things. The changes that you make should be enjoyable and should make you feel good. In addition to the big reward at the end, you might also set up smaller ones along the way or create smaller health and wellness challenges with friends that will get you closer to your goals.