Setting exercise fitness goals can help your elderly family member to stay focused on the decisions she’s made about being more fit, exercising more regularly, and improving her health.
Her exercise goals don’t have to be complicated. In fact, the simpler your senior’s goals are, the more likely she’s going to be to meet them.
Encourage Her to Think about Why She’s Setting Goals
What’s your senior’s purpose for having fitness goals? Does she want to lose weight or does she want to feel healthier? Is it both? There are no right or wrong answers, but it’s important for your elderly family member to know what her “why” is. That’s going to help her to carry on, even when her goals seem too far away. Goals don’t have to be something that keeps your senior pinned down, either. Her goals may fluctuate over time. Knowing her purpose can help her to set the right goals.
Short-term Exercise Goals Help Quickly
Short-term goals are important because they’re going to give your senior some immediate success. These might be goals like finding an activity she likes or choosing a pair of athletic shoes that feel like the right ones. They might even involve researching exercise classes for seniors in her area. These are goals that are steppingstones to your senior’s long-term goals.
Long-term Exercise Goals Show Your Senior Where She’s Headed
Long-term goals are a little bit different. These are the big picture goals like she’ll be able to walk a mile without stopping within a specific timeframe. Or maybe that she’ll lose a certain amount of weight within six months. These are goals that she’ll have to work harder to get accomplished. They’re also goals that take a bit more time to accomplish.
Review Those Exercise Goals Periodically
Once your elderly family member has goals written down, it’s important for her to review them periodically. That helps her to stay in touch with what she wanted to do initially. If some of those goals change, that’s fine. She might find that some of the goals she set as short-term goals are actually long-term goals. That’s important information that helps her to finetune what she’s doing.
It’s always a good idea for your senior to exercise with someone else around, just in case. Having home care providers on hand is an even better idea because they can offer help and companionship while your senior works toward meeting her goals.