Throughout this semester, I have been trying hard to work towards my goals that I had set for myself in this course. My first goal was that I would like to become better at setting goals for myself, whether it is for school or outside of school. I would like to set the goals and actually work towards them to better myself and relationships with others. My strategies to obtain this goal was to keep goals for the week written down in my planner and cross them off as I complete or achieve them. I will start off with smaller daily goals and make them weekly goals that will hopefully turn into a lifestyle habit. My second goal I set for myself was that I would like to get more in tune with my body and my family history of disease. I would like to know if my levels are in a healthy range and would also like to figure out what diseases I may be more prone to due to my family history. The strategies I had in mind for attaining this goal was to have blood work done to see my levels for everything. Also, I would like to talk with my family and see what diseases run in the family so that I can keep an eye out for early signs and try to veer off that path and live a healthy lifestyle.
I feel as though the goals I set for myself were realistic and attainable. What helped me with my first goal was making it a point to keep things written down into my agenda. The day after writing that goal I decided to go through all of my syllabi and put all my exams, assignments, and other important dates in so that I knew when things were due and being able to have it all in one place. For my second goal, I had a talk with my mom about certain diseases that run within the family as well as getting blood work, which turned out to be normal for my age. When obtaining the results, I found that unlike my family, I have a normal cholesterol level that is healthy for my age. I also found out that I have a normal iron level, whereas my family runs a lower iron level. I did not seem to have any results on diseases in my family that I could be prone to, as my family is relatively healthy. The way I am maintaining this goal now is by exercising, maintaining a good fluid intake, and having good nutrition to prevent or veer from any oncoming conditions that may run in the family. Barriers to goals only really apply to my second goal, as it was difficult to get in for an appointment at my doctor’s office, but it was made possible with some working out with schedules. Although this is a normal obstacle for going to the doctor’s, it was the only obstacle I had during this process as it took longer than I intended it to.
When relating my goals and how I attained them to Prochaska’s Transtheoretical Model, I seemed to have followed it quite well. I first started with pre-contemplating, where I was deciding what goals would be realistic and attainable. I then moved to contemplating, where I had goals in mind but wanted to narrow it down to ones that made the most sense for my lifestyle. I then moved to preparation, which included writing these goals down and writing down ways that I can attain them both. Finally, I moved to action, where I physically was working towards those goals, such as writing all my assignments in my agenda and making an appointment with my doctor, as well as chatting with my mom. Maintenance is where I am now, by keeping a healthy lifestyle and keeping an organized agenda that have smaller daily goals within it, such as going to the gym or doing a certain assignment early. The final step is relapse, which I hope does not occur, such as lacking to write down my assignments or lack of keeping a healthy lifestyle.
Changes that were necessary for me to be able to continue to meet my goals in to put myself in a routine that is simple and realistic. I do not need to make too many changes in my life to achieve these goals, I just need to stick to a routine and get ahead on my weeks. I would like to make a routine that includes doing all of my school work for the day, going to the gym, and coming home to cook and study at the end of the night. In conclusion, I hope that within the rest of this semester, I will be able to continue what I have been doing; keeping a schedule of my schoolwork and maintaining a healthy lifestyle that is realistic to my needs. I believe that these goals are perfect for me at this time in my life as they allow enough time for everything that I need to do in my days. I think that this assignment helped me realize my goals, as well as attain them. I feel as though I needed an assignment like this to realize my goals and put them into action.
