Are You Setting Reasonable Goals?

As Laura Kneedler discusses in her post How to Make Your Fitness Goals Stick, successful goals often share certain attributes. Perhaps the most important characteristic of a goal is that it needs to be realistic. If your goal is not reasonable, you will be setting yourself up to fail. Part of you always knows when that is the case, and your heart can’t really be in something that you know isn’t realistic. So how do you know if the goals you’re setting are reasonable?

How many goals are you working on at once?

Goals - Keep a Journal or Log of Your Progress Towards Your Goal and Note How You Feel Each Day

Goals - Keep a Journal or Log of Your Progress Towards Your Goal and Note How You Feel Each Day

If you expect that you should follow a regimented schedule when in the past you’ve always been the type to “wing it” or you try to impose a number of new habits on yourself all at once, it’s unlikely that you will be able to succeed. We only have so much energy and so much focus and if we spread it too thin, nothing gets the right amount of attention.

Additionally, the word “priority” kind of loses its meaning if you start to label everything as “a priority.” Restrict the number of changes you’re trying to make at any given time (begin working out, start eating 5 meals a day instead of 2 or 3, never skip breakfast, take the stairs at work instead of the elevator, etc.). You shouldn’t try to make more than 1 to 3 changes at a time. Pick the very most important to you and leave the rest aside for now. When you accomplish one of your goals, celebrate, reward yourself, and pick the next most important goal to you.

Keep a journal or log of your progress towards your goal and note how you feel each day. You can review it each week and learn to spot where you have difficulties sticking to your goal.

Are you building on past skills or trying to learn everything at once?

Drastic changes are very hard to incorporate into your life. Children understand that when you’re doing something like playing a video game or working your way up through school, you have to get through level 1 before you can move on to level 2. For some reason, as adults, this concept all but disappears and we expect ourselves to master all of something immediately, rather than gradually.

When you make your goals, don’t make them so difficult that you set yourself up to fail. If you’ve never worked out, don’t decide to start working out for one-and-a-half hour gym sessions. It’s not good for your body and it’s even worse for your motivation and follow-through.

You need to be reasonable with yourself. Start with the least you can do in one or two areas and commit to doing that for a few weeks.  Then, when you make your next goal, take it up a notch. You are more likely to be on track 3 months down the line if you do that then if you overdo it now.

Will it take longer than a half of a season?

If your goal will last longer than 6 weeks, break it down into smaller, incremental goals. Don’t plan to “lose 35 lbs by Bathing Suit Season” in the early winter. It’s fine to have that in the back of your mind as a final goal, but focus on the next few weeks. Plan instead to “lose 10 lbs in the next 6 weeks.” Once those 6 weeks are up, you can reward yourself for a job well-done and, if you want to, renew the goal. You may find at that time that there is a more important goal that you need to work on at that time.

Having goals that feel like they will never end will sap you of your motivation. Not to mention that priorities change and if all your goals are so extremely long term you may never get to the end of any of your goals before another priority swoops in to dethrone it. 6 Weeks is short enough that you can usually make a solid commitment to the goal, and it’s long enough that you will develop good habits you won’t need to work hard at maintaining when you turn your focus to another goal.

Will a stranger be able to judge when you’ve reached your goal?

Goals like “look good in a bathing suit,” “workout enough” or “finally be the size I want” are far too subjective. Your goal needs to be set objectively so that you will know exactly when you have achieved it in a very specific way. If your neighbor or grocer couldn’t measure your progress, you need to refine your goal. Again, you may have something else in the back of your mind, but the goal you set (and accomplish) needs to be specific.

So give your goals the 4-question check-up and see if they pass the test. If your goals are reasonable, they will stick; and that’s the best way to Get Fit Fast.