The importance of goal setting 

Goals and your healthcare team

Professor David Hunter, rheumatologist 

It's really important you engage a good healthcare professional team around you and make sure that they understand what it is that your goals are make sure that they understand what it is that you want to attain long-term and help them to facilitate you reaching your goals. 

Goal setting with exercise

Matthew Williams, physiotherapist

It's often very worthwhile to set short-term goals with your physiotherapist this may involve something as simple as being able to make it to the letterbox and back pain free or a more ambitious goal like being able to finish the city the surf at the end of the year. I find that with my patients getting them to keep a logbook and exercise diary or any other form of measure can be particularly beneficial in maintaining your motivation. Even something as simple is carrying a pedometer which measures the number of steps that you take when you're walking each day can be a great motivator in order to try and reach short-term goals and eventual long-term goals. What gets measured gets done.

Motivation and rewards with exercise goals 

Lucinda Moody, exercise professional

Sometimes it's hard to be motivated to exercise. Here are some things that that can help you so, if you can talk to other people that have been through a similar experience and see that they've lost weight or they've improved their quality of life that's a real motivating factor for you to know that you can do this. It's important as a motivating factor to give  yourself reward so if you achieve your fitness and health goals it might be to lose  5 kilos in in five weeks it's important to  reward yourself and say okay I'm going to  buy myself a new outfit or I'm going to go and  have a healthy lunch somewhere or spend some  time at the movie so by giving yourself rewards  and kind of self-affirmations that I have  done this that is a great way to keep yourself  motivated you can see where you're going and  you can see your goals that you that you're  set and where your aim, where you're headed.

Goal setting and joint replacement 

Judith Nguyen, osteoarthritis patient

With joint replacement I think it's very important to have a goal to say I'm going to be up and walking pain-free in X number of weeks or months. Besides which I was working full-time  so another goal was to get back to work and with  all my joint replacements I've taken only about  three weeks of work then I might have worked from  home but after six weeks I was actually back in  the office because I think keeping busy mentally and physically active is really the key  to coping with pain and for coping with joint replacement and the other thing is I had  a goal about what I wanted my knees to do because  I worked at Premiere in Cabinet every so often I  had to go after the Premier's office and he had  this gorgeous furniture that the seats were so  low and I'd get over there and I'd get into one  of these seats and then I just couldn't get up, well not elegantly. So, said the orthopaedic surgeon what amount of flex do I need to get out of the low chair, and he said 140 degrees.  So, that was my goal, so after I stood up about the next day after that we started on physio and my goal was to have that flex before I left hospital in fact. Because I'd had both knees done, I remember lying on the bed doing the exercises you know the cycling all that sort of stuff and then would get measured and I was determined that they were both going to be the same. I mean my left knee was more damaged it took a little longer, but I still remember the day it reached the same level of movement as the right knee.