Ok so I promise my slackness from the holiday season is overnow and I’m back to bring you mostly weekly posts so we can all keep on trackwith our health and fitness goals in 2013 :)
Hopefully by now being halfway through January everyone has thought about what they want to achieve in 2013. I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions but I am a big believer in New YOU goals. Goals that you can commit to and that aren’t going to fade out by February or March!
This week, at a course, I was reminded of the best way to set goals in order for success and I thought I would share them with you all just in case some of you are struggling trying to come up with the best way to achieve them or have set goals in the past and failed and aren’t sure why.
The best achieved goals are more so than often set under the SMART principle. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic/Relevant andTimely. Let’s look at each one more closely.
Specific- The goal you are setting needs to be specific otherwise it becomes harder to achieve. If you just say “I want to lose weight”are you really giving yourself something specific to get to? How much weight is going to make you happier within yourself? Is it really the kilograms you want to lose or is it body fat? Or if your goal is wanting to build muscle you need to then get more specific. Where you want to build muscle? Are you looking to build strength as well or do you just want more definition e.g. the “toned” look?
Measurable- The next step is making that goal measurable. So if gaining muscle in say your arms and chest is your goal then you need to take measurements of these areas before you begin so you have a baseline to refer back to when you reach the time period you have given yourself to achieve that goal.
Achievable- One of the biggest factors that stop people from achieving goals in my opinion is when people set unachievable or unrealistic goals. So for example, Katy has set out to make her goal of losing weight specific. She wants to lose 10kg and 15% body fat. She has taken her measurements and done a weigh in. She gives herself a month to achieve this goal. Do you think she will succeed? I can guarantee you if for some reason she manages to then it will not be through sustainable methods and she will gain that weight back within the following month. In this case Katy should set herself specific mini goals in achieving her overall goal of 10kg loss. The healthy amount of sustainable weight loss is 0.5-1kg per week.
Realistic/ Relevant- If Katy’s goal is to lose 10kg she needs to be setting smaller,realistic and relevant goals that will help her achieve this. So for example her saying “I will exercise twice a day 6 days a week” when she hasn’t previously been exercising probably isn’t that realistic. If she says she will start with 3 sessions a week this is going to be more realistic and relevant to her goal and she is less likely to quit after a week when she is exhausted.
Timely- You need to make sure that you are giving yourself a time limit on achieving the goal so that it can be measured and you can be held accountable.
If we are to put all of these things together into a SMARTgoal it would look something like this. Katy wants to lose 10kg and 15 % body fat. Her current weight is 70kg and 30% body fat. Katy is going to aim to lose a kilo a week by beginning with 3 sessions of cardio/weights and modifying her diet by cutting out added sugars and fats. Katy would like to have lost the weight and body fat by 3-4 months.
It’s specific, measurable, definitely achievable if she stays focused, realistic and timely. It’s SMART.
If you are struggling or have struggled at achieving yourgoals in the past why not give this method a try. As I always say if you need some extra help get a trainer, or if you can’t afford that then why not try a bootcamp or group exercise session to get you started. No goal is impossible if you are SMART about it.
Make 2013 the year for a new and better you :) If you have any questions about the SMART principle leave me a comment otherwise until next post keep eating CLEAN, training MEAN and living LEAN :)
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