Your goals' goals!

Hey guys,

Just a tid bit about goal setting. This was inspired by one of my clients Elise...

I can never stress enough the importance of stating in writing what you what to accomplish. Your goals are a distinct destination. When it comes to our health, distinct destinations are import as we are very good at convincing ourselves and others of half truths. No one is immune to it. We are all human. In business, takes precise goal setting and accounting of those goals to keep profitable. In fitness, without the appropriate goals in the right doses, it takes almost no effort to convince ourselves that we don't feel like eating well and become disinterested in exercise. Simply going to the gym can become enough for most feel like they've achieved something great for themselves once mediocrity has set in.

I challenge each one of you reading right now to look back on the last 6 months of your life and quantitavely explain what you have achieved.

"I'm stronger now," is not a measurable achievement.

"I used to have have flab, now I have fab," is funny but useless. We need a little more exact of an answer.

"I'm down 4% body fat and can do 20 more pushups a minute," is a rocking answer. Simply put, numbers don't lie.

If you can give a detailed answer of your achievements, you've likely committed yourself to a program and are in a good mindset for success. If not, you're literally spending your money on conversations with friends. Let's take a different approach come 2012. It starts with this fitness oriented goal setting strategy.



Step 1: Choose 4 long term (12 month) "functional" goals. These cannot be asthetically based and I'll explain why later. Functional means doing so these must represent achievements which build a better & stronger body you desire.

Goal 1- Commitment- Extremely important since it sets the groundwork for your program. Reading information about diet and exercise everyday is an example of committment. A good idea might be committing yourself to reading a certain trainers blog everyday before working out!

Goal 2- Strength- Think about 1 component of your life which you can see the need for a stronger body. Depending on your interests this can vary from person to person so think personal. What do you need to be stronger at? (It may be picking up your kid or being able to defend yourself) 
Goal 3- Cardiovascular- This could be a specific resting heart rate or a mile time. But the goal must be personalized or you are on the road of disinterest and plateaus.

Goal 4- Nutritional- What is the killer component of your diet? Carbs, sodium, diet coke? Identify it and let's set a strategy to get rid of it. (If diet is pretty spot on, then look towards another strength goal)


How do you know these are the right goals for you? All of them should reflect, if achieved, a better asthetic looking you. All added up you should have no problem picturing yourself in the best shape of your life. Most of all, they should excite you. Don't pick boring goals....THEY WILL BORE YOU!


Step 2: Short-term goals- this is very easy
Write 2 short term goals under each long term one. These are weekly strategies you can instantly implement to move towards the bigger ones. The bigger ones now become your goals' goals.

Here's how to do it: If your goal is to give up sugar, then the 2 short term goals should be directed at eliminating situations where sugar is a danger. Perhaps bringing your own food to work or switching your choice of alchoholic beverage on the weekends would be a good start.

To help better illustrate how to do this exercise here's a general outline of my goals' goals:

Now we have a distinct destination and a road map to get there. Goal setting done! Now the work begins..


For any questions or comments, please email me at mritter@wellbridge.com