Setting Fitness Goals

When you begin with setting your fitness goals, you’re providing yourself with a target to aim for, it’s your road map to help reach your destination; your desired health and fitness. 

Goals help us to stay on track and keep motivated.

Using the acronym SMART is a great way to remember how to set goals.

• Specific 
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Realistic
• Time

Let’s break these down!

SPECIFIC

When setting your goal, it needs to be specific so you can focus your efforts plus, it helps you stay motivated.

 A specific goal answers questions like; 

• What needs to be accomplished? 
• Who is responsible for it? and 
• What steps will you take?

By answering these few questions, we take a general goal and turn it into a specific goal. 

For example, A general goal would be:  “I want to lose weight.”

We make this specific by stating how you plan to lose that weight. Eg. ” I’m going to begin exercise and start eating better, to lose weight.” 

It also helps by being specific in why you wish to lose this weight, and how you think you will feel when successful. Doing this helps you stay on track and best of all, stay motivated!

MEASURABLE

By making the goal measurable, you’re able to track your progress. Small wins along the way help with motivation too!

Once you have worked out your specific goal, in this case: “beginning exercise and eating better to lose weight.” 

you’ll need to make the goal measurable. So if the goal is to lose weight, you need to decide how much weight. 

We can expand on that original goal with this example: ” I’m going to begin exercise and start eating better to lose 10kgs.”  

We now have a specific and measurable goal.

ACHIEVABLE

Goals need to be achievable for you to accomplish within your means. This helps you to stay on track and motivated. Choosing an achievable goal will help you figure out ways you can realize the goal and work towards it. 

The goal should be difficult enough to be challenging but not too difficult for it to be unachievable. 

When setting these goals and determining if they are achievable or not, you will need to ask yourself;

• Am I capable and do I have the resources to achieve this goal?
• Have others in similar situations done it successfully before?

Once you have figured out your goal is achievable, you’ll find it much easier to accomplish. 

REALISTIC

Your goal must be realistic so you can achieve it with the resources available to you and the time you have available.

If the goals aren’t realistic, you may find yourself feeling discouraged and unmotivated which is the last thing you need when reaching your desired health and fitness.

An example of a realistic goal would be; Begin exercising 2-3 times per week to reach my weight loss goal.

By having a realistic goal, you can avoid feeling unnecessary stress and frustration.

TIME

When setting goals, you need to give yourself a time frame in which you would like to reach this goal.

A realistic time frame, helps you stay focused and motivated by inspiring you with something to work towards. The time frame must be realistic to avoid feeling overwhelmed and giving up.

WHAT IS THE SMART GOAL

Once you put the SMART acronym in place, you now have your goal.

” I want to begin eating healthier and exercising 2-3 times per week to lose 10kg over the next 3 month’s”

•  Specific – eating better and exercising to lose weight
•  Measurable –  lose 10kg
•  Achievable – 10kg is achievable weight loss
•  Realistic – Exercising 2-3 times per week 
•  Time – 3 months