Meet Your Fitness Goals for This Year!

We are one month into the new year. Are you still attacking your list of goals for the year? Most of us have at least one fitness related goal on our list every year. Your goal might be to lose weight, be your best at your sport, fit into a certain size of clothing, get stronger, run a race, win a race or just to feel better and healthier. I have noticed over the years that most goals we initially set are not realistic. Our goals are either not specific enough so we will never know if we reach them, or too big to accomplish in a realistic amount of time. Why does this matter? Isn’t it good you have set goals to better yourself? Of course it is. That is the first step. However, if you have ever set a goal that wasn’t met or set a goal but don’t know if you completed it, then you need to modify your goals. A joke about New Year Resolutions is that people set the same goals year after year. It doesn’t have to be that way. Let’s see how you can feel very accomplished and have a whole new set of goals by the beginning of next year!

In order to do a goal check, we need to use a term used in Project Management. Our goals need to be S.M.A.R.T. This stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely. Grab you goals, and let’s get started. If you haven’t thought about specific goals for the year, now is a good time to put the things you want to accomplish in a format that will set you up for success in 2016! 

The first step to reaching our goals is to set SPECIFIC goals. Most of us know what we don’t like about ourselves and what we, our family, our doctors and/or our coaches think we need to change. We need to take it a step further now and change that general desire into a SPECIFIC goal. Examples of general goals would be: I want to be smaller, I want to be healthier, I want to weigh less, or I want to be the best athlete on the team. However, SPECIFIC goals would be: I want to fit into a size “__” of clothing, I will go to the gym 3 times a week, I will be able to run a 400 m race in __seconds,  or I am going to weigh “__ pounds less” by “March 15.’ 

After we have set specific goals, we need to make sure they are MEASURABLE. The good news is that if you made SPECIFIC goals they will be MEASURABLE! Whether your goal is to go to the gym 3 times a week, fit into a certain size of clothing, improve your race time or any other specific goal, you will be able to easily keep track of the progress of your goal. Most goals we really want to accomplish aren’t easy and you might feel discouraged at times or even have setbacks. Maybe you only made it to the gym twice this week, your clothes aren’t feeling any looser or you race time didn’t budge. In order to inspire you to not give up, find a workout buddy or teammate… a close friend who knows your goals and can encourage you. You also need some way of tracking your progress. Keeping a journal and writing your progress and what you are doing to achieve it will help greatly.

Next, you need to make sure the goals you have set are ATTAINABLE and REALISTIC. Goals need to be made based on who you are now, not who you were 15 years ago. You want to set goals that you can reasonably achieve and will help you feel good about yourself. Using weight loss as an example, I have met many women who want to weigh what they did when they were younger and before having children. However, a weight that is healthy for your body currently and will still make you look and feel better will most likely be different on the scale now. You want to set your goals based on what is good for you at this moment. 

Finally, your goal needs to be TIMELY. You want to make sure that your specific goal has a REALISTIC and appropriate time frame for success. Also needed is a target date for completion. Sometimes if you have a very big goal, it helps to make several smaller goals adding up to your final goal. This can help you feel accomplished and successful along the way. 

Setting goals should make you feel directed and motivated to be healthier and feel better about yourself. If you aren’t sure how to set SPECIFIC, MEASURABLE, ATTAINABLE, REALISTIC, and TIMELY goals or how to achieve them, we would love to help. YOU CAN DO IT…YOU DESERVE IT!