Years ago, when I was training to become a personal trainer, one of the things that I learned was a great technique for goal setting: Use SMART. The acronym stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-framed. So, instead of saying something like, " I want to eat healthier," a SMART goal would be, "I want to start eating two servings of vegetables, five days a week for a month." You can clearly see the difference between the two.
Recently, I set a SMART goal for myself that turned out to be really DUMB. 
In mid-July, I had a horrible bike accident. I flew off my bike, landed on my left shoulder, shattered the head of my humerus, needed extensive surgery, and walked out of HSS (The Hospital for Special Surgery in New York), with two plates, and 22 screws in my shoulder. Since I had all of this hardware in my shoulder, formal physical therapy would not start for at least 5-6 weeks post-surgery. However, before I left the hospital, I was given 5 basic exercises to do on my own. I had to do 10 reps each, three times a day. I was on board!
Two weeks after my surgery, I met with the PA, who removed my stitches. He told me that he wanted me to add another exercise when I was 3-4 weeks post-surgery. This one would be challenging. I would have to put my hand on the wall and try to walk it up as high as I could. THE DREADED WALL CRAWLS. I cringed just hearing about this.
When the time came, I was ready. I even had a friend with me for added support. Of course, I was going to make this SMART. I was going to do my wall crawls three times in a row twice a day. In addition, I had my friend mark the wall with tape, so I could make sure I would go a tiny bit higher each time. I would be able to see my progress! I felt so good about this plan.
To make a long story short, after two days of this, I was in a lot of pain. I wrote the PA for some guidance, which, of course, I should have done BEFORE I started. He told me that he wanted me to do about TWO of these a day, otherwise, having that kind of pain would just be counterproductive.
Of course, I should've known this. I know all about the detriments of overtraining. I immediately marched to that wall and removed all the tape. No more! I was unable to do two wall crawls for days and days because I was so uncomfortable.
I constantly preach to my clients, the importance of listening to your body. Overall, I think I'm very good at this. However, when it comes to physical challenges, I clearly have some blind spots. Listening to your body is crucial in all aspects of your life from eating, to sleeping, to moving your body and beyond. You might me ignoring the need to be more intimate with your partner, or connecting with a friend. Our bodies tell us everything, if we would just listen.
Knowing this, if I were to rewrite the SMART acronym, I would somewhere add the letter L for LISTEN. Listen to your body. Let's go back to that first example I made about eating more vegetables. Let's say, that you added two vegetables every day for five days for a month. And during that time you were bloated, had a lot of gas, and were uncomfortable. Clearly, you would need to adjust the goal! I had no business pushing through that kind of discomfort. But I fell into the trap because I was looking at the tape on the wall instead of listening.
Lesson learned! Don't be DUMB about being SMART!
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