Setting SMART goals

Effective goal setting can depend on goals being ‘SMART’:

• Specific (exactly what are you going to do?)
• Measurable (how will you know when you have achieved it; e.g. Glucose results?)
• Achievable (something you can do)
• Relevant (something that is going to get you what you want or is linked to your goal)
• Time (a start time, a finish time, frequency, when)

Encourage participants to examine their individual goals to make sure they are SMART.

Barriers to achieving goals

Goals are not always easy to achieve. Barriers may be:

• life events
• slow progress – the goal has not been fully defined or may not be ‘SMART’
• not enough support
• maintaining enthusiasm
• hassle factors, such as routines at work and at home
• not taking time out to review patterns in the Glucose diary.

Encourage participants to explore barriers to change. Use probing questions, and questions on viewpoints and perspectives, to explore barriers. Involve the group in problem solving how to overcome barriers.