How To Set and Achieve Fitness Goals

By Chicago Personal Trainer, Ron Munvez

Achieving your fitness or performance goals isn’t easy, but if you set or establish your goals, your chances of success is much greater. At Tri-Fitness & Performance we work with general population for weight loss and general fitness and we also work with athletes looking to improve their performance goals.

So lets look at goal setting to help you reach your fitness or performance goals.
It’s not all about will power and determination. It helps, but more important is having a plan of attack that you can implement. Here are some tips to help you reach your goals.

SMART GOALS
Specific – define your goal, such as I want to lose 10 pounds or I want to run a 10k in under 45 minutes. Not just “I want to lose weight or run faster.”
Measurable – something you can actually measure, like getting on a scale or timing your self-running a 10k.
Achievable – Make it something that is not too far reaching.
Realistic – Make sure it is something you know you can reach. For example to say I want to lose 10 pounds in 2 weeks is not realistic, or to run a 10k in 30 minutes when your best time ever was 50 minutes. Setting realistic goals will help you achieve your goals much easier, as you have less of a chance of giving up.
Timely – set a time period to reach your goal, be it 1 month, 6 months or 1 year, but make it realistic and achievable.

Setting process based goals is the real secret. Process goals are the road map that will get you to your goals. They are the system behaviors or habits that your are going to implement. I want to lose 10 pounds or run a 10k in under 45 minutes is an outcome goal. The process is how your are going to change your habits to get you there, like – I am going to eat veggies for lunch and dinner everyday or run interval 3 time a week.

Write down your goals where you can see them. You are 40% more likely to accomplish your goals when you write them down and see them.

Ask Why – Look below the surface and think about why your goals are important to you. You might set a goal to lose 20 pounds, but the question is, why do want to lose the 20 pounds? How will it make you a better person? What will it enable you to do in life? I had client that always wanted to lose weight, but not really change his diet. He really did not have a why until he got diagnosed with Type II diabetes. Then he had a why and changed some habits that changed his diet and he began to loss weight.

Set 30-Day Goals – mini challenges are easier to achieve eventually leading to your final goal.

Set Performance Goals – Such as number of push-ups or pull-ups. 1 mile run for time. Focusing more on what your body can do and less on how it looks has been shown to yield greater long-term satisfaction. Ask yourself this question: If you completely ignored the way you look and only focused on being able to do a pull or run a faster 5k, would you end up looking better anyway?

Find a sustainable workout program and nutrition solution – If you start a workout or exercise program that beats you up and you are sore every day or get injured, it is not sustainable.

Set a number of times per week that you are going to workout and make it happen no matter what. Remember, a workout doesn’t have to be a 1hour sweat fest. Even 10 minutes of pushups, squats, and planks count towards your goal.

Remember this – you can never outwork a crappy diet, I repeat – you can never outwork a crappy diet. The worlds greatest exercise program will never over take a bad diet. Any weight loss goal starts in the kitchen.

Don’t live and die by the scale – if anything, especially for weight loss, look at it as fat loss. Find a piece of clothing that doesn’t fit you or barely fits you. After 6 weeks, put it on and see if it fits uncomfortably, where you really have to suck in to snap or button it. Then in another 6 weeks try it on again and see your results. If you body is getting smaller, you are losing fat.

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Ron is a certified personal trainer in Chicago, IL. Contact him today to schedule a free introductory session.