We love goals, especially when it comes to health and wellbeing.

In fact, a big part of what makes the Vitality programme so popular is our success when it comes to helping members – your clients or employees – to achieve health goals that are personalised to them and their lifestyle.

Setting goals across all health pillars, from exercising more and eating healthier to sleeping better and managing stress, starts with crafting a roadmap to follow. To keep consistent and achieve a goal, we need to build healthier habits, and this is something we’ve spent a lot of time unpacking here at Vitality.

In research called the Vitality Habit Index, in partnership with the London School of Economics, we look at what it means to form a habit and why healthy habits are so important for better health outcomes.

What we found; and why it matters

Insights from our Index suggest the following steps when it comes to positive behavioural change and habit formation, which we call ‘habit laddering’:

1. Set the target – this should be based on where someone is in their health journey and what kind of health benefit they hope to get.
2. Be practical - if they are just starting the habit, our advice is to start slow so that it does not feel too demanding.
3. Focus first on consistency then add intensity – first repeat the habit for between 4-6 weeks and then when it’s more entrenched, start to build on it.

Exercise ✓ Sleep ✓ Nutrition ✓

We also found that the knock-on benefit of just one healthy habit means remarkable perks for other parts of our health: both physical and mental. For example, exercising more helps us to sleep better, sleeping better supports metabolic health and helps with weight loss, and healthy weight loss in turn helps reduce major risk factors for diseases like high blood pressure and diabetes.

All in all, this means healthier, happier individuals enjoying the positive impacts on their own lives, in the workplace, and more broadly across society – a key part of the virtuous cycle of benefit in our Vitality Shared-Value Insurance Model.

So, how do we set SMART goals?

Let’s caveat here by saying: No, a goal to “get healthier” just isn’t that helpful. It’s not specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, or time-bound enough. Instead, setting SMART fitness goals means deciding upfront what the game plan is: what someone wants to achieve, how they will achieve this, and by when (with the added motivation of great Vitality rewards along the way to act as powerful incentives).

Instead, a SMART goal looks like this:

“In the next three months,

I will increase my daily number of steps

from 8,000 steps per day to 10,000 steps per day

by going for a walk every evening.”

Or this:

“In the next two weeks,

I will increase my daily intake of fruit and veg

from 1 portion per day to 3 portions per day

by planning my meals in advance.”

Or this:

“In the next week,

I will improve my sleep hygiene

and go to bed an hour earlier

by turning off my digital devices.”

These are now achievable goals – and ones that can be tracked and measured over a set time so that we can celebrate when they are reached.

This quick summary can help your clients and employees to set SMART-er goals:

Got the goal?

Time to achieve it. Everyone’s SMART goals are different, and they can be short- or long-term depending on what the end goal is.

Setting goals is exciting, but it can also be quite daunting when we start out. By breaking down objectives into manageable, daily actions – and laddering these habits into our daily routines – we can start to build a solid foundation for future goal success. And remember: encourage your clients and employees to have fun!

Let’s chat more

As the world’s largest behaviour-change platform, we’re passionate about making healthy living easy and accessible for everyone. Our personalised health, wellness, and safer driving solutions are designed to inspire and reward healthy change for you, your clients, and employees. Explore our solutions