Goal Setting and Action Planning for Health Behavior Change

Health behavior change is challenging for most individuals, but there are many strategies that individuals can use to facilitate their behavior change efforts. Goal setting is one such strategy that assists individuals to identify specific behaviors to change and how to go about doing so. For many, however, simply setting a goal seldom leads to actual behavior change. For some, identifying an appropriate goal is difficult, while for others, putting goals into action is the roadblock. Two strategies may be of assistance for setting and achieving goals. First, consideration of key goal characteristics (eg, approach vs avoidance goals, performance vs mastery goals, level of difficulty) may result in selection of more appropriate and feasible goals. Second, action planning can help individuals put goals into action. Clinicians can help patients utilize these strategies to set and achieve goals for health behavior change.