CREDIT: THINKSTOCK (ARTURSFOTO)
With the Thanksgiving weekend right around the corner, it might be hard to stay on track of your fitness journey. However, if you make tiny goals and steps that lead up to bigger goals, you'll see progress over time.

For some, the fall season or the thought of Thanksgiving weekend bring together many different ways to ignite the senses: the cool weather, the familiar aromas of apples, cinnamon, cloves, the thought of a big meal enjoyed with family and friends, the beautiful fall colours and a cozy warm sweater.

I like to think of the change in seasons as a time to renew your goals and accomplishments so far. Having specific goals and ones that are achievable in a short period, like a season of a few months helps get you into a more motivated mindset. Start with choosing one meaty goal: the “glutes” of goals, the ones that are achievable, but with many steps in the process. That is where you choose a few smaller goals or the “guts” of the process.

I like to choose one overall wellness goal, like getting eight hours of sleep each night, for example. Then I also choose one overall fitness goal, like competing in a ninja warrior type competition. Now I have to think about all those little goals to get there: get ready for bed earlier, have a better night time ritual, do some night time yoga or meditation, practice upper body strengths moves, get better at pull ups, etc. Once I make this list of goals, I put them in a priority order of what I need to practice first. Then I put them in my calendar and set reminders to get notifications for when I need them to motivate me. Doing this breathes a new life into my routine and helps me to let go of the last season and look forward to the future.

Before I let go completely of what I did or didn’t get to do last season, I like to look back on what I have accomplished to this point. I have a gratitude journal where I sometimes record daily, weekly or monthly wins. At the end of a season, I review those wins and add in a few more. They could be something someone else might see as minor, such as learning how to make my own healthy ketchup (true story) and all the way to beating my 10 kilometres race time from last year.

Giving gratitude to yourself, no matter how big or small is uplifting and is a positive way to enter the next stage of your life. This way, we don’t dwell on the negatives, we instead focus on our achievements and then learn from our mistakes and unfinished business.

Try keeping a gratitude journal for the next seven days or over the Thanksgiving weekend, take a moment to record (write it down or in your smart phone or blog site) all the things that you have done a little bit better than before, or that you finished or that you became awesome at. I hope this will boost your mood, motivation and mental well-being and help you realize that you are making progress.