Everyone wants to live a healthy, long life. We often implement diet, exercise and other lifestyle changes to achieve this goal. However, setbacks and stumbling blocks can cause us to get discouraged. As a result, many health and wellness goals are often abandoned before encouraging progress is made.

If you struggle with reaching your health goals, here are five tips to help you set, keep and reach your wellness goals.

1.Find Your Motivation

What is motivating you to lose weight? Do you want to look better in your clothes, feel more energetic, or simply improve your health? Get clear about what you want, and then use that to inspire you throughout your journey.

2.Make Goals

Goals help measure progress. If you don’t know where you want to end up, you won’t really know how to get there. When making your goals, you need to make SMART goals:

Specific

Measurable

Attainable

Realistic

Timely

For example, a SMART goal would be something like, “I will walk for 15 minutes 3 days for one week.” Or, “I will prepare one new healthy recipe each week for the month of January.”

3.Drink More Water

Considering our bodies are made mostly of water, it is super important to keep yourself hydrated. Everyone is different, so water consumption may vary but make an effort to avoid those sugary drinks and have an ice cold glass of water with lemon instead!

4.Make Time for Exercise

Just like brushing your teeth is a daily part of your routine, exercise should be too. I get it, we all have busy lives and before you know it the day has slipped away. Are you a morning person? Set the alarm one hour earlier and rise and grind. Do you prefer to workout in the evenings? Pack your gym bag in the morning and take it with you so you can go straight to the gym after work. Bottom line is: if you want to make a change you have to incorporate daily exercise.

5.Buddy up with someone

Having a friend with similar goals as yours can make the whole journey to your personal success a lot less stressful and more productive. The great thing about having a buddy with the same set of goals is that you can keep each other on track, especially if you feel like giving up, whether it is going to the gym or eating healthy. You are a lot less likely to give up on doing something if you know that your friend is in the same boat and also working hard to stick to their health plan. Just pump each other up and don’t give up!