I am very much a goals oriented person. I like having something to work towards. It gives me structure, purpose and focus to my training. It also keeps me motivated to keep working until I achieve whatever the current goal is.
Goal setting is very important and doesn’t have to be something huge and outrageous. For example, I have a client who couldn’t do any sit-ups when she started exercising, even assisted was a struggle. Her short term goal was simple: do 3 sit ups unassisted by Christmas. So we worked hard strengthening her abs and core. She smashed it and did 10 2 weeks before Christmas last year by the way! We would have trained the same muscles regardless, but having a specific and measurable goal allowed her to see results in a way that mattered to her.
There is no magic wand for health and fitness. It takes time and dedication. When you decide to lose weight there are 2 very measurable ways to see results…the way your clothes fit you and the number on the scales heading south. When you want to become fitter and stronger it is important to have a way to measure your progress. As a PT, I track my clients’ progress constantly. I keep a record of all their sessions and I can tell them how much they have improved by, simply by looking back at previous sessions and what they could/couldn’t do versus what they’re doing now. But we also set goals. Short term goals, medium goals and long term goals. It allows me to shape their sessions accordingly and allows them to see their progress directly. And I can tell you both on a personal and a professional level, there is so much satisfaction from reaching goals both my own and my clients’. Reaching your goals is such a positive experience.
So many of us believe that there is only so much we can do, that we will never be able to achieve a certain level of strength or fitness because that’s not where we are right now and it’s hard to imagine it any other way. But when we set ourselves goals and start working towards them, we realise that we are actually far more capable than we ever imagined. And when we reach our little milestones, we become more motivated to keep going, set new goals and strive for bigger things.
