Every effective exercise program should be built around a goal. Without a goal, it’s very difficult to know where you’re going, and more often than not will not reach your desired outcome. Like we mention here, writing down your goal will make you more likely to achieve it. Your goal can either be a big goal broken down into smaller steps (e.g. wanting to lose 50 pounds in a year) or something we call a process goal. A process goal focuses on the actual habits that lead to an eventual outcome. For example, if your end goal is losing 50 pounds, you may create a process goal of attending three personal training sessions per week as your way of achieving that.
Be very specific about your goal
Wanting to lose weight or gain muscle is not a specific goal, nor will it allow you to create the required plan necessary to achieve that goal. Here are some examples of how you can make a goal more specific:
Instead of “I want to lose weight,” you can try “I want to lose 20 pounds of fat in 5 months.”
Instead of “I want to get stronger,” you can try “I want to be able to squat 125 pounds by December 31st, 2021.”
Instead of “I want to run faster,” you can try “I want to run an 8-minute mile by the end of the next 2 months.”
Start slow
If you haven’t engaged in an exercise program for a long time, jumping right into training for a lofty goal may not be the best approach. Overdoing it can lead to failure which can lower confidence, resulting in a lack of consistency necessary to achieve any goal. If you want to read more on gaining confidence, check out this post.
Start slow and create smaller, more achievable goals that can lead up to your eventual goal. For example, if you want to lose 50 pounds for a wedding that’s in a year and you haven’t worked out for several years, jumping into high-intensity workouts three times per week may not be the best idea. In this case, you could build up to going on 4 hour long walks per week in order to get into the habit of moving. Then once you are able to do this consistently, adding a couple of workouts and then slowly building up will allow you to have built enough confidence to stay consistent with your goal. Remember, whatever allows you to stay consistent in your journey is the best way to reach your goal the fastest.
If you want to learn more about creating personal and specific goals, contact us today at UpFit Academy with any questions.
