There are about a million ideas, tips, tricks, hacks, and strategies to get healthy out there. Just do a quick Google search and you’ll see literally hundreds of millions of results. It can be difficult to get clear on what you need to do to get healthy, whether that means losing weight, getting in better shape, or just improving your overall energy levels. 

Well, today we’re going to help you out and make it simple. Before you set another goal or start another diet or workout program, read this!

The best strategies to get healthy must include these three things:

1. Forget goals. Define your life mission first.
2. Determine your critical actions.
3. Create an implementation intention

Let’s dive into each one so we can apply it to your life today. 

1. Forget goals. Define your mission.

One of the most overstated strategies to get healthy is to start with goals. Goals are all the rage. They’re exciting and motivating…in the beginning. The problem with most goals is that they aren’t based on a deep sense of purpose. Think about it; most goals, especially around your health, are created out of a shallow sense of purpose. We want to look better. We want to feel better about ourselves. It’s as if we set goals hoping they will enable us to have a powerful life mission. But it’s actually the other way around. 

You need to first clarify your life mission. Just like a business must do to be successful, you need to know your mission. Why does it even matter that you lose weight? Why do you need to be fit and healthy? It must be tied to your purpose. Start with this question: why are you here? What makes you come alive? Odds are, being healthy and fit will be necessary for you to accomplish your life mission. Being unhealthy, overweight, and out of shape will hinder you from living out your life mission.

Define your life mission. What are you most excited about when you wake up each day? What is the underlying reason that you will pursue good health?

2. Determine your critical actions.

Once you determine your life mission, you need to know exactly what it takes to accomplish it. Ideas can be powerful, but they are useless without action. What are the most important actions you must take everyday to live your life mission? These are your critical actions.

If you have to narrow your critical actions down to just three, what would they be? What are the actions you must take to guarantee you move in the direction of your life’s mission everyday? This can be a challenge, but do the work of clarifying this. 

Here is an example. If you are a writer and your life mission is to change the world through your books and articles, your critical actions might be:

1. Wake up early.
2. Exercise.
3. Write.
4. Share your work.

You know if you do those four things everyday, you’ll always be moving in the direction of your life mission. You’ll also accomplish a great deal if you are consistent. This list is simple on purpose. Don’t over complicate things by creating ten critical actions. Narrow it down to three or four and make sure you have a plan to accomplish them every single day. Also, make sure your critical actions fit with your life’s mission. What’s even better about this is that you can likely accomplish your critical actions before you go to work each day. 

With any of the strategies to get healthy, this tactic of creating critical actions will just about guarantee you’ll get healthy and accomplish more than any goal you’ve set in the past. 

3. Create an implementation intention

To take all of this and skyrocket your chances of following through on your clearly defined strategies to get healthy, you need to create a plan to do them. The best way to do this is by creating an implementation intention. An implementation intention is simply a written statement that clarifies when and where you will perform an activity or habit. James Clear, author of Atomic Habits says, “People who make a specific plan for when and where they will perform a new habit are more likely to follow through.” An implementation intention is that plan.

It simply looks like this:

I will [BEHAVIOR] at [TIME] in [LOCATION].

So, in your own life, once you’ve defined your critical actions, use the implementation intention to schedule it:

I will do 30 minutes of exercise at 7:00AM in my garage.

I will write 500 words at 8:00AM in my living room.

Writing this out and placing it in an obvious, highly visible place, like next to your bed or on you bathroom mirror, will exponentially increase your chances of following through. Make this a daily practice and you’ll see incredible results in your life.

We hope these strategies to get healthy help you on your journey!

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