To live a healthy life you need to stay active, eat well, get enough rest, manage your stress, drink copious amounts of water, breathe deeply, spend time in a quiet place, and follow a plethora of other measures.

Sound familiar? By now this advice is almost common knowledge. Yet no matter how many times we hear it and agree, we still manage to put it on the “when I have time” list and move on to more pressing matters.

It’s not a failing of our character or even the lack of willpower. We tend to have a hard time wrapping our minds around abstract or intangible concepts.

For instance, many studies show exercise and healthful eating can prevent cancer. Yet we spend more time in choosing which wireless device is right for us than which exercise program is right for us because you can touch a cellphone or iPad but you can’t touch cancer prevention.

What is the solution to this dilemma? You make the intangible tangible.

First, set a clear, specific and realistic goal. It helps to write down that goal and to start small.

While losing weight, getting stronger, toning up and feeling healthier are all admirable goals, they are much too vague. To achieve all those things, you have to break them into smaller, digestible chunks with markers you can measure.

Getting stronger and feeling healthier should translate to a progressive increase in the amount of work you can do or load you can bear.

More specifically, if your starting baseline is 30 pushups in 1 minute, 20 seconds of holding a plank, and making a loop around Diamond Head in 60 minutes, then a realistic goal would be: “After four weeks of training with the same routine for a minimum four to six days per week, I will show a 20 percent improvement in every category.”

Tracking your progress in this manner is a lot more rewarding, as you can actually see the results rather than rely on faith alone that what you are doing is working.

Here are a few more guidelines to follow when embarking on your healthful lifestyle mission.

>> Stay balanced. Mix up the hard days with the easy ones. Your body needs a chance to recover from heavy strain.

>> Pain does not always mean gain. Real progress will usually be accompanied by some discomfort but should never be so painful that you are unable to move for a few days.

>> Practice does not make perfect, it only makes habit. Pay attention to how you perform your exercise and be sure you are getting what you intend. If a triceps rope-pull feels like you tweaked your neck instead of worked your upper arms, then you most likely trained your neck instead of your triceps.

>> Be patient. Rome was not built in a day. Take your time. After all, you have the rest of your life to be healthy.

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Reggie Palma is an exercise physiologist and personal trainer. His website is fitnessatyourdoorhawaii.com. Email questions to Fitnessatyourdoor@Mac.com.