We’re three weeks into the New Year and whether you’ve taken action and started working on your fitness goals or not, now is a good time to take a closer look at your goals. How you set your goals will play a big role in whether you achieve them or not. Goal-setting is a skill and like any skill, it can be learned and improved with practice.
The key to successful goal-setting (which sets you up for goal-achieving) is being SMART about it:
SMART goal-setting breaks down as follows:
S—Specific
M—Measurable
A—Attainable
R—Recorded
T—Time-oriented
You will be far more likely to succeed in achieving your goals if your goals are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Recorded and Time-oriented.
Let’s look at each one of these factors individually.
S—Specific
You’ve got to make your goals specific. This means taking your ‘lose weight’ goal and turning it into ‘lose 10 lbs.’ or changing ‘build muscle’ into ‘add 5 lbs. of muscle’. ‘Get toned’ turns into ‘Lower bodyfat by 5%’ (for example). The key here is making your goal real enough to engage your mind at the subconscious level. Your subconscious mind can’t—or won’t—get engaged in something vague and nebulous, like ‘lose weight’, but it certainly can get very involved in losing 5 pounds, for example. Specificity ties in with the next part of intelligent goal-setting, measurability.
M—Measurable
Once you make your goal specific, you’ve got to specify some criteria for measurement. This is the best way for you to measure your progress along the way and to determine whether you have reached your goal or not. Having criteria for measurement helps to engage your subconscious mind. Being engaged in achieving your goal on a subconscious level can be very effective.
A—Attainable
One very important consideration when it comes to goal-setting is making your goals realistic. So make sure that your goal is attainable. What qualifies as attainable is very much up to you. The key here is to make your goal a bit of a stretch…but not too much of a stretch: make sure your goal will challenge you, but don’t set yourself up for failure before you begin by setting a goal that your will never achieve.
R—Recorded
When you set a goal for yourself, unless you are not really interested in achieving it (in which case, it is time to really accept how much you really enjoy your current reality), you’ve got to make it real. One very simple, yet very powerful way of doing this is to write it down. Writing your goals down engages your brain in a very different way from simply thinking or speaking about them. In deciding to begin your journey to greater fitness, you have really decided to transform your life. Transforming your life ends up meaning changing some of your habits—be they habits of thought or action. Providing yourself with a written reminder of your commitment—in your journal or planner or beside your calendar—will be very helpful, both as a conscious and subconscious reminder of the progress you make along the way and as a means of organizing your plan for achieving your goal.
T—Time-oriented
Speaking of a plan, your goal needs a timeline. Without a timeline, your specific, measurable, attainable, recorded goal may never be achieved…because you have no timeline for achieving it. A timeline will help spur you into action and is vital for the construction of your plan of action.
Further, having something concrete, like your goals written down in your journal or agenda or beside your calendar, provides a regular conscious and sub-conscious reminder of your goal.
As I mentioned last week, it’s easy enough to get motivated around the start of the New Year: it’s a time to reflect on the past and a time to give thought to the future. Further, at this particular time in our history, we are feeling even more hopeful: now is a time that is pregnant with possibilities. The biggest challenge for many will be maintaining this level of motivation. Remaining committed to your goals is best thought of as being a process. This moment-to-moment process requires some regular nurturing and reinforcement. Setting SMART goals makes them more than just nice ideas or fantasies.
Once you’ve taken the time to put pen to paper and write down your goals, it’s time to come up with a plan. How are you going to achieve your fitness goals for 2009? Does everyone need a personal trainer to help them along the way?
1.12.2009
Getting started: Choosing to make a change
It’s a New Year and it’s time for a change. One of the most common New Year’s Resolutions made every year revolves around improving physical fitness. Perhaps it’s losing some weight or perhaps your goal is motivated more by the simple wish to look and feel healthier. Whether you’ve been active for some time now or you’re looking to start exercising for the first time (ever or after years!), it’s time for a change; it’s time for a different approach.
It’s time to look at things differently.
What it really comes down to is that choosing to start exercising means making a lifestyle change. You’ve probably heard this before.
Choosing to begin exercising has the potential to represent far more than just going to the gym for an hour, several times a week. If you want to see any sort of progress, you will need to exercise regularly. You’ll need to develop the habit of exercising.
But there’s more: if you really want to make some progress, you’ll need to change your diet. Changing your diet in the best way, may well mean changing not only what you eat, but when you eat and how.
So it’s got to be exercise and diet. Got it.
Now let’s go deeper. What about your mind? Your mindset going into the New Year is going to make a huge difference in terms of whether you follow through with your Resolutions or not. Recognizing that your mindset is not a one-time decision and that it is a moment-to-moment choosing makes all the difference in the world.
It’s makes intuitive sense: how you think and feel about choosing to be more active are going to be a determining factor when it comes to follow-through. If we look a bit closer at that, I said how you think—which is done with your mind—and how you feel—which is done through your body—that makes the difference. It’s one thing to have a thought that says exercising would be a good idea. It’s quite another to actually get up and do it. Mind and body must work together in order for you to succeed.
I would imagine that many of us are familiar with the highly motivated state of mind that you often find yourself in when you make your New Year’s Resolutions. Go there now: take a moment to think about your fitness goals for this year. Stand up as you do this.
Are your goals realistic? That is, will you be able to achieve your goals if you actually take action?
What are your goals, specifically? For example, if you want to lose weight, how much do you want to lohttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifse? (Recognize that 1-2 lbs/week is generally considered healthy weight loss). Get as specific as possible. Put some thought into exactly what this end result will look like to you. Imagine yourself actually achieving your goal. How does that feel?
Now, let’s use that feeling and translate it into action. Getting yourself to the gym or exercise class or DVD the first few times is easy enough. In order to develop the habit of feeling motivated to take action towards your goal on a regular basis, you will initially need regular monitoring. Regular reminders will help you to create this new habit. Remember, a habit of regular exercise is just as much mental as it is physical.
Now is the time to create those reminders. Write down your specific goal—along with your realistic timeline—and post it on the mirror in the bathroom. Write notes to yourself in your daily planner. Put exercise on your to-do list. Put your workout plan on the wall next to your bed or your calendar. Create little reminders wherever you feel you need to in order to nurture your commitment to your goals.
Next week, we’ll look at goal-setting more in-depth and outline more specifically how to set yourself up for success and lasting change.
It’s time to look at things differently.
What it really comes down to is that choosing to start exercising means making a lifestyle change. You’ve probably heard this before.
Choosing to begin exercising has the potential to represent far more than just going to the gym for an hour, several times a week. If you want to see any sort of progress, you will need to exercise regularly. You’ll need to develop the habit of exercising.
But there’s more: if you really want to make some progress, you’ll need to change your diet. Changing your diet in the best way, may well mean changing not only what you eat, but when you eat and how.
So it’s got to be exercise and diet. Got it.
Now let’s go deeper. What about your mind? Your mindset going into the New Year is going to make a huge difference in terms of whether you follow through with your Resolutions or not. Recognizing that your mindset is not a one-time decision and that it is a moment-to-moment choosing makes all the difference in the world.
It’s makes intuitive sense: how you think and feel about choosing to be more active are going to be a determining factor when it comes to follow-through. If we look a bit closer at that, I said how you think—which is done with your mind—and how you feel—which is done through your body—that makes the difference. It’s one thing to have a thought that says exercising would be a good idea. It’s quite another to actually get up and do it. Mind and body must work together in order for you to succeed.
I would imagine that many of us are familiar with the highly motivated state of mind that you often find yourself in when you make your New Year’s Resolutions. Go there now: take a moment to think about your fitness goals for this year. Stand up as you do this.
Are your goals realistic? That is, will you be able to achieve your goals if you actually take action?
What are your goals, specifically? For example, if you want to lose weight, how much do you want to lohttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifse? (Recognize that 1-2 lbs/week is generally considered healthy weight loss). Get as specific as possible. Put some thought into exactly what this end result will look like to you. Imagine yourself actually achieving your goal. How does that feel?
Now, let’s use that feeling and translate it into action. Getting yourself to the gym or exercise class or DVD the first few times is easy enough. In order to develop the habit of feeling motivated to take action towards your goal on a regular basis, you will initially need regular monitoring. Regular reminders will help you to create this new habit. Remember, a habit of regular exercise is just as much mental as it is physical.
Now is the time to create those reminders. Write down your specific goal—along with your realistic timeline—and post it on the mirror in the bathroom. Write notes to yourself in your daily planner. Put exercise on your to-do list. Put your workout plan on the wall next to your bed or your calendar. Create little reminders wherever you feel you need to in order to nurture your commitment to your goals.
Next week, we’ll look at goal-setting more in-depth and outline more specifically how to set yourself up for success and lasting change.
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