Setting Fitness Goals is Essential to Long-Term Success
What are your goals? Here are some common things people say they want to achieve when they come to me for workouts and programs:
Lose weight
Get fit
Be healthier
Get stronger
You’ve probably heard these a million times. But what makes the difference between those who succeed and make positive changes and those who fail or drop out?
The secret is goal setting. Just saying you want to get fit doesn’t mean much. What does fit look like? Can you measure it? To help yourself succeed and truly make changes, you have to first set the right goals that will inspire and motivate and that can be measured and tracked.
The Importance of Setting Fitness Goals
Before beginning the process of setting and trying to achieve fitness and health goals, it helps to have an understanding of why doing so is important. As a fitness professional, I already know this fact. You will see more and better results when you start with an achievable, specific goal as opposed to just working out with no plan.
But to have a complete grasp of why goals can help you achieve more, you also need to be able to understand the concept. You need to start with goals before you ever hit the gym.
Goals Make Change Seem More Possible
A lot of people hesitate to get involved in training or fitness because making big changes seems insurmountable. It takes a lot of courage for a beginner to begin training. They likely have wanted to change for a long time, but doing so felt like climbing an impossible mountain.
Set small, actionable goals and you will begin to see that change can happen. It’s not climbing a mountain—it’s just walking up a series of reasonable hills, one after the other.
Goals Spur Motivation
One of the most common challenges is keeping motivation. With goals in place, you have something to return to again and again as a source of motivation. Keep the goal, whether it’s a specific weight loss or being able to finish a 5k without walking, dangling like a carrot and you will stay more motivated for longer.
With Goals, You See Progress
This fits with the idea of motivation. When you have goals to meet, you actually see the progress you’re making as a result of input of effort. If you want to lose a certain number of inches from your waist, for instance, you can measure that. You see that the work and the planning you are doing are really paying off and that acts as further motivation to continue.
Every Workout is More Efficient with Goals
When you have a specific goal, or goals, every training session will be more focused than it would be otherwise. Without goals, or with very vague goals, like losing some weight or getting stronger, you can’t focus your workouts. With the right goals, you’ll actually save time by honing in on exactly what you want to achieve and the strategies that will get you there.
Without Setting Fitness Goals, Success is Elusive
What all this adds up to is the fact that without firm goals in place, success is more difficult to achieve. You may lose some weight; you’ll probably get a little stronger; you will be healthier than before you started training; but will you achieve all you hoped for? Probably not. You need goals to succeed, to achieve what you set out to achieve!
Tips for Setting Effective Fitness Goals
Goal setting is unfortunately not as simple as just saying what you want: I want to be skinny; I want to run faster; I want to be stronger. Sure, you can make it that simple, but if you do, success will be much less likely. Good goal setting is thoughtful. It takes time, consideration, and planning to create goals that won’t be a setup for failure.
Think about New Year’s resolutions. It’s common knowledge that the vast majority of people fail at the big goals they set for the coming year. This isn’t because we don’t want to achieve those goals or make real changes. Most people fail because they don’t know how to set effective goals that prepare them to succeed.
1. Break goals into parts.
A big reason New Year’s resolutions fail is that they’re too big. Losing 50 pounds by the end of the year is a worthy health goal, but it’s pretty difficult to face something so major. Achieving that goal is more likely if you break it down into smaller parts. For instance, losing one pound a week or four pounds a month is much more manageable and therefore achievable.
2. Make goals specific and measurable.
Individuals with performance goals are more likely to succeed. Why? Because their goals are usually very specific, like running a 5k in under 24 minutes. When you have something specific to hit, you can make a better plan for actually getting there.
Athletic and performance goals are also typically measurable. For a fitness competition, for instance, you may want to have a certain number of inches around your biceps. You can measure that, which means you can plan more focused training strategies to achieve it.
3. Make goals realistic and attainable
There’s nothing wrong with dreaming big, but big, overarching goals that are unrealistic only set people up for failure. If a client comes to me with a goal that seems unreasonable, I obviously don’t shut them down completely. Instead, I work with them to break it into smaller, attainable goals.
With goals that are unrealistic, individuals will only get frustrated and be more likely to quit. With smaller, realistic goals you will see that you are making progress toward something bigger. This provides greater motivation.
4. Put a time limit on it.
Goals need to be time-constrained. With no time limit, there is no urgency and no reason to push. If your goal is simply to lose ten pounds, when will you achieve it? You could potentially spend the rest of your life trying to lose that weight. Set a larger goal with a big time limit, like one year, and then break it down into smaller goals with shorter time periods.
5. Goals must be meaningful.
If goals are not personally meaningful for you , you’ll never meet them. There needs to be an emotional attachment, which is why it is essential that you set your own goals. You can seek guidance, but It has to be up to you!
Avoid These Common Mistakes When Setting Goals
Now you know that setting goals is much more complicated than many people imagine. Anyone can set a goal in seconds, but to do it right takes thought and planning. Successful goal setting also requires avoiding some pitfalls. Learn from the mistakes of others and avoid these common mistakes:
Setting negative goals. Don’t let yourself set goals like ‘not being fat’ or ‘never eating junk food again.’ Success is more attainable with positive goals like getting to a healthy weight or eating more vegetables.
Being afraid to adjust goals as needed. Adjustment doesn’t mean failure. Ingrain this in your brain because failing is a big de-motivator. Always be prepared to change goals if you find they are not realistic or need more time.
Not keeping track of progress. Put your goals in writing, and then keep a record of your progress. Remember, goals should be measurable. When you measure and record progress, you get to see the benefits of your efforts and this is motivating.
Punishing failures. Again, avoid the idea of failure altogether, and whatever you do, don’t encourage punishment. This is not helpful but it is a common reaction to not meeting goals. We have a tendency to punish ourselves. Instead, talk to yourself about what went wrong and what you can do differently going forward.
Not rewarding achievements. Punishment is counterproductive, but rewards can be helpful and motivating. Celebrate each small goal met and each bit of progress recorded, even if it’s just a high five and kind words. Do NOT reward yourself with food!
Focusing on perfection. Perfection is pointless, and going for it sets even the most motivated person up for failure. Focus on consistency and progress, not perfection.
Setting fitness goals is a cornerstone of success in making lasting, healthy changes. Goals should never be an afterthought!
Reference:
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