Here are the 3 things that will help you achieve your goals this year. Listen up! 

If you’re already struggling to keep your New Year’s resolution or didn’t set one because you’ve seen the stats about most people dropping out before February,

Here’s the thing… 

Let’s say you haven’t been exercising regularly and your New Year’s resolution is to lose 100 pounds. 

There’s a lot of steps involved in getting from point A (your current: weight, health condition, fitness level, mindset, fitness knowledge, routine) to point B (100 pounds lighter, improved health, improved fitness, better mood, consistent and progressive workout routine.) 

Yeah! That’s a lot of pressure to hit a home run if you’re playing your first ball game. Here are the 3 things that will lead you to success with your goals this year if you apply them. 

BONUS PRE-TIP: Choose to set goals with activities you enjoy or believe you could find joy doing. Now…

Process Goals 

Make process goals a habit before you try to start measuring progress. Going back to our 100 pound weight loss example (applicable to any weight, BTW). If you’re not in the routine or habit of working out at least 3 times a week, make it a point, or your FIRST goal, to work out at least 3 days a week for 3 weeks.

The “act” of working out 3 days a week is your process GOAL. It may take you a few weeks to a couple months to achieve this first process goal. 

The sooner you commit to the process, the sooner you’ll make progress. 

Baseline

Now that you have established a routine or gotten in the habit of working out 3 days a week, it’s time to establish your baseline by measuring something you want to improve. ONE thing. Such as SPEED, DISTANCE, or STRENGTH. Note: you can do it all but the point is to STICK WITH your goal and prevent overwhelm and drop out from doing too much all at once. No bueno for caca. 

• Speed – Time yourself performing the activity 

• Distance – Measure how far you can go

• Strength – Determine the max amount of weight you can lift

Strength Training can lead you into the weeds pretty quickly without educated guidance. If you’re just starting out, you may want to get a personal training session and ask about simple strength training exercises for beginners. 

Progress 

At this point you’ve developed a routine of working out, you enjoy the activity you’re doing, and have established where you stand currently with your level of fitness. NOW you’re ready to make progress. 

Using your baseline measure to help determine what you want to accomplish and work backwards with the time frame you have to work with. 

Example: If you chose to improve your distance, you may want to be able to run a 5K (3.1 miles) by March 31st. If today is January 7th, you have 12 weeks to build your endurance to run/jog/walk a 5K. You can break this big 3 month goal down into mini monthly goals. 

If you were able to run .5 mi during your baseline test, you could make your mini goals the following: 

• Month 1 (week 4): Run 1 Mi

• Month 2 (week 8): Run 2 Mi

• Month 3 (week 12): Run 3 Mi

Weight Loss is a Result (because I used it as an example)

Notice how I haven’t actually mentioned weight loss yet? That’s for a few reasons. 

1. Weight loss will occur as a result of increasing physical activity regularly without focusing on it.

2. Pairing a healthy diet with exercise will lead to even greater improvements in  performance and weight-loss. 

3. Establishing a regular workout routine, finding enjoyment in exercise, and establishing short term goals all contribute to the foundation of adherence – the ability to stick with your goal. 

Steps 1, 2, & 3 above are the FOUNDATION for building a weight loss goal. 

Start from The Beginning 

It’s good to start slow so you can get some momentum with your progress and have some definite “wins” along the way. If you start your journey towards your goal off too fast, hard, and it’s unenjoyable, (that’s what she said) you’re not likely to stick with it. 

Enjoy the Journey

On the flip side, if you allow yourself to get into the groove, choose an activity you enjoy and establish a base starting point, getting to that finish line will be much more enjoyable and rewarding – keeping you on track and taking you beyond your initial goals. 

#goboldandbeyond