Dream Big. Set Goals. Take Action

In studying for personal training qualifications we were taught the importance of goal setting – being that goals ought to be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely. There are short-term goals, long-term goals, weight-related, fitness-related and strength-related goals plus medium-term goals, sport specific and mental and physical goals.

When you think about it, we establish goals for ourselves on a daily basis, often without even acknowledging that we’ve done so. We set ourselves up to make breakfast, to do the big food shop on route home from work, to read a book, watch a movie or call and catch up with a friend. We tell ourselves that we’re going to finish our studies, get a job, buy a house, go on holiday, get married and have those odd 2.4 babies the media always bang on about.  

Without setting these goals would we get anything done?

When it comes to our health and fitness, goal setting is of paramount importance.

Knowing where you want to be and how you’re going to get there is half the battle when it comes to losing weight, getting fit or reaching new strength gains. It allows you or your trainer to think ahead and build a realistic programme for achieving results and can be a great source of motivation.

My top 5 tips for goal setting:

1. Find your motivation. There are two types of motivation: intrinsic and extrinsic. The former comes from within – sorry to state the obvious – and so means doing something for you and your own benefit. Extrinsic refers to the desire to do something for some external factor or reward. Whatever your motivation is, keep it in mind; don’t take your eye off the goal and always remember why you’re doing what you set out to do
2. Commit to it. This ties in to goals being specific. Don’t leave your goals open-ended or vague because you think there’s more chance it’ll go unnoticed if you fail to reach it. The more specific you are, the easier it will be to adapt your life or training to enable yourself to achieve.
3. Space it out. If your goal is to run a marathon but you’ve never even ran for the bus then allow yourself time. Be patient and break down the ultimate goal into shorter, more manageable increments such as running 5km, then 10km. The same goes for if your goal is to lose 2 stone. That’s a fantastic goal, but set yourself weekly weight loss targets – healthy weight loss is around 2lbs per week – and each time you succeed use this as extra motivation to continue
4. Tell everyone. There’s no shame in relying on others to keep you on track. The more people you are accountable to, the more likely you are to be focussed on succeeding as you’ll be letting more than just yourself down. Also, if you tell all of your friends and family that you want to run that marathon then they can support you, encourage you and be that external motivation source to help you on your way
5. Don’t give up. Sometimes, no matter how hard we try, we won’t achieve our goals in the time we gave ourselves. Life happens. It throws us unforeseeable mishaps that take us off course or set us back, but it doesn’t matter. Your goals can be changed; they can be tweaked and re-evaluated to suit. That’s not a free pass to give yourself more time to lose weight to facilitate a weekly Saturday night takeaway, but a means of taking off the pressure and acknowledging that as long as you give it your all, you will reach your goal someday so keep going