Making sure you have a clear and achievable set of fitness goals during your journey is super important. Not only does it help you target the right exercises and food choices, but it also keeps you going, day after day.
With no goals, your fitness program will lose focus and it’s more than likely that you’ll eventually give up due to the lack of results.
However, if you keep reading you have a chance to learn everything necessary about proper goal setting and planning right now, today!
Why is it Important to Set Goals?
Setting goals is crucial not only in fitness, but in life as well. Having a clear set path will help you achieve whatever you want, whether that’s weight loss, muscle building, endurance, or anything else. Goals help you push through tiredness, fatigue or uncertainty as you have something to aim for, giving you a purpose for your hard work.
Make sure these objectives stay achievable as well. Too many of us have unrealistic fitness expectations in mind, which cause us to fall off the wagon once we face the truth.
How to Set Goals
While there are no rules when it comes to training in a certain way to set your fitness goals, still there are a number of tips you can try out and see which work best for you.
One Goal at a Time
First, it’s crucial not to try and focus on too many goals at once. By keeping one precise objective in mind, you’ll stay focused and motivated, making it much more likely to achieve what you set out to do. However, if you have more than one goal in plan, it’s important to tackle them each individually as the confidence you gain from completing one, will help you push through the next, and so on.
Make Your Goals a Priority
When setting your fitness goals, it’s crucial to make them important for you. Even though you may easily be influenced by super-fit people on social media and their goals, replicating won’t work. Therefore it’s vital that your fitness goals are exactly yours. If it’s something that truly means a lot to you, then you’re more likely to achieve it.
Specific Goals
Aim for a specific goal you want to reach. So don’t just say “I want to lose weight”, but rather determine the exact ideal weight you want to reach. Having a set time frame for achieving this is also something you need to have in place. “I want to lose 10lbs in the next 2 months.”
Lastly, come up with ways you’ll likely be able to accomplish this. “I can lose 10lbs in 2 months by eating 500 calories less each day.”
Start Off Slow
While it’s certainly not great to have really easy goals, they still need to be reachable. If you make them too difficult to manage, then the likelihood of failure is much higher. You should be confident of reaching your goals when you set them, knowing this is something that can be done.
Be Patient
Unfortunately, fitness and health are a long-term game. You’ll never achieve your targets in a few days, or weeks, unless they are really easy. Anything that’s valuable requires time and patience, so stick at it and you will be rewarded in the end.
Micro-Goals
Besides patience and being realistic, another way to help you set achievable goals is to include so-called “micro-goals” within your major goal. This gives you a stepping-stone approach that allows small accomplishments during the way to a major win. For instance, if you’re aiming to bench press 225lbs for the first time, make a micro-goal to perform 195lbs first and once you can do that regularly, move on to 210lbs, and so on until you get to 225lbs.
Sticking to Your Goals
Figuring out your goals is not the hardest part, but committing to them is. Putting things into action is where it gets tricky. If you structure your goals properly – as explained here – then that should make it significantly easier.
But still, it would be nice to have some support that will motivate you along the journey, especially if there’s someone you can work out with (similar preferences). Supporting each other during the way is going to lessen the likelihood of giving up, adding a little bit of competition and extra edge to spice things up.
Ensure Success
A great way to ensure a steady course towards your goals is by hiring a personal trainer. We at Science of Cardio have fully qualified PTs available at any time, just for you! Not only will we keep you motivated, but we are going to also help you get more out of your workouts.
This means complete exercise guidance, both in terms of giving you a program that will help you reach your fitness goals, and also by helping you perform each exercise correctly.
So what are you waiting on? You have the necessary info now, go out there and reach your fitness goals!