Where Are You With Your 2013 Fitness Goals?

Are They S.M.A.R.T.?

Monica Millage CSCS – Team Jeremy Scott Fitness

            As we’ve had three months to work toward our 2013 fitness goals I thought that this would be a great time to share a very valuable lesson from back in my college days that has stuck with me and can be applied to not only your fitness goals but to many other areas in your life.  If any of you are familiar with Paul J. Meyer’s “Attitude is Everything.” than you are already lucky enough to have this wealth of knowledge and hopefully this will serve as a refresher.  For those who are not familiar I hope that this information helps you to maximize your fitness potential.

            Hopefully the past three months have found all of you closer to those fitness goals you set for yourselves back in January.  For those who aren’t quite there yet or have completely fallen off the wagon I encourage you to re-evaluate those goals you set so that you can be successful for the rest of 2013.

When setting fitness goals usually two scenarios happen, either your goal was far too low and therefore not challenging enough or maybe you went to the other extreme and set your goals a bit too high and gave up way too early because you didn’t see results quick enough.  In order to avoid either of these scenarios

I encourage you to apply the S.M.A.R.T. criteria when setting your goals.  S.M.A.R.T. goals should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time bound.  For example, the most common fitness goal, “I want to lose weight.”  While this is obviously a great starting place, it is far too general and will not do a very good job of keeping you motivated.  On the other hand, “I want to lose 15 pounds from my starting weight of 150 pounds by July 1st” is a much better goal.  This goal is specific with the amount of weight loss desired, measurable by simply standing on a scale, attainable and relevant as 15 pounds lost in 3 months is realistic and it is time bound with the 3 month deadline.

            Now we all are familiar with the harsh reality that there is no “magic pill” that is going to get you results overnight so it is just as important to set smaller daily or weekly goals that are also S.M.A.R.T. to help you stay motivated so that you will achieve that long-term goal.  For example, if the long-term goal is the one mentioned above, then some appropriate short-term goals to remain focused would be “I will attend training sessions a minimum of 3 times this week”, “I will log all my food intake for 1 week”, “I will abstain from drinking alcohol this weekend”, “I will eat clean for 24 hours.”

These short-term goals are vital to your success as they are the “how” you will achieve that long-term goal you have set for yourself.  Plus, these smaller daily and weekly “wins” will definitely help you get through those hard days where you will want to give up entirely on that goal.

            So if you are a newbie and have not set any goals yet or if you have been with us for awhile and maybe already achieved some of your 2013 goals I encourage you to evaluate what it is you most want out of your fitness experience and set the appropriate goals to help you get there.

Monica Millage – Team Jeremy Scott Fitness