3 Important Factors to Consider When Setting a Fitness Goal

After what feels like 4 months of moving houses (check this blog I wrote about moving twice + having to vacate my place twice for 1 week+ due to maintenance work – in the span of 4 months!), traveling and trying to settle in to my new new place I am FINALLY starting to feel like myself again and ready to start setting a new fitness goal and working towards it!

Today I want to touch on 3 important factors to consider when setting a fitness goal:

1: Make it measurable, specific, and time-bound

Having a measurable goal allows you to track your progress. The more specific your goal is, the clearer the path to achieving it becomes! A time-bound goal motivates you to get to work and push through on those days where your motivation isn’t there.

A great way to remember this is through the SMART method: Make your goal Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely.

2: Set the bar low at first by setting micro-goals on the way to your big goal

Let’s say your big goal is to lose 100 kg. Chances are, that you’ll feel discouraged even before you set off to achieve it. Knowing that reaching your big goal will take years can keep most people from even attempting to start. It’s just too big of a challenge for the mind to handle! Not to mention, that if you do set put on the journey despite that having to wait too long to celebrate a victory can make you feel like you haven’t accomplished anything which can end up diminishing your motivation and steering you off track completely.

But if you start on your weight loss journey to lose 1 kg. per week, 4 kg. per month and 10 kg. by the end of the year, that’s going to keep you accountable from week to week, and reaching your smaller goals along the way will build your confidence!

3: Be flexible in your approach to achieving your goals

Even though it’s important to be specific when setting your goal, it’s also important to understand that life happens, and sometimes you have to scale down on your ambition for some time, to stay sane and avoid burn-out.

Remaining flexible in your approach to your goals means being open to sometimes swapping your perfectly measured out home-cooked meal-prep meals for a chicken salad on the go, or switching your 2-hour pre-programmed gym workouts for a 20 minute HIIT session at home (or even a gentle yoga session or a walk!)

Sometimes we get so focused on doing everything perfectly, that we forget that your progress depends on what you do consistently over the long term, not on what you do once in a while or for 2 weeks at a time!

If you want to learn more about how I set goals and stay realistic in my approach despite things happening that I can’t control such as feeling under the weather, work stress, etc., I think you should watch the first video in my new YouTube series FIRM + FIT Episode 1. In the video, I cover my fitness goal for 2019-2020 as well as my physique update and you get to see what I did when I wanted to smash a gym session but I just wasn’t feeling well.