“I have a few big, hairy, audacious goals.” These profound adjectives presented before the word “goals” caught my attention as I was meeting with a new personal training client. “I call them BHAGs. I use them as a tool to achieve my sales quota for my job. If I don’t set those goals for myself, I underperform. And I don’t want to get fired. So, why not set my fitness goals the same way?” Impressed by his serious approach towards achieving his goals, I was able to develop an effective set of tactics for this client because he already had a foundation established to meet his goals. We simply needed to sit down, grab a pencil, and conduct an interview to collect and document how he was going to reach these benchmarks.
The desire to improve one’s fitness can be hindered by emotions of frustration, sadness, or even anger. “Why aren’t I losing weight?” “This meal plan makes me feel miserable.” “I’ve tried everything.” These are a few examples of phrases that are caused by the trials of achieving challenging fitness goals. It’s relatively easy to complain, berate, or make excuses when confronted with uncomfortable situations. However, taking time out for yourself, being quiet, remaining physically still for a few moments, and recording thoughts takes effort. Circling back to the example of the client who wanted to establish his BHAGs, treating our fitness goals just like a decision to generate money and keep our job can put us in a potently effective growth mindset. In order to do so, we need to retrieve goals we value the most, document them, and develop an action plan to accomplish them. Here are a few simples steps we conduct with our clients to collect and layout plans to achieve fitness goals:
- Sit down, be quiet, and grab a pen: It doesn’t take an overabundance of effort to wake up at your normal time, eat the same breakfast, grab your cell phone, open your favorite app, put your coffee in the same mug, get in the car, put in 8 hours of work, and come home. Rinse and repeat this routine 5 times per week. The challenge occurs when breaking that cycle. These repeat patterns can put us in a sense of complacency, which pose obstacles in our abilities to establish and create new goals. In order to put ourselves in a growth mindset, stepping into an uncomfortable and awkward situation can present an opportunity for new thoughts to flow in. Try setting aside fifteen minutes to grab a writing utensil, something to write on, start a timer for fifteen minutes. A microwave timer, oven timer, or watch will suffice. You read that correctly, use your hands, fingers, and an instrument with led or ink to transcribe your thoughts onto paper. Don’t use the keypad on your cell phone. Put that electronic extrapolation of your life in another room where it can’t be heard. Trust me, it will still be there when the fifteen minutes is up. The cancelling out of distractions will allow the mind to extract valuable thoughts for setting goals.
- Make Monthly Goals: Society is fortunate enough to have calendars. Twenty-eight days is a fair amount of time to establish some smaller goals that will help contribute to our BHAGs. For instance, if our goal is to lose fifteen pounds in three months, perhaps an attainable monthly goal would be to lose five pounds within that four-week period. Jot these monthly goals down, and revisit them after four weeks. Perhaps you surpassed this goal and it’s time to set some more challenging ones for the next month.
- Weekly Tactics: Delve into your monthly goals and peel back the onion to achieve slightly more granular goals. What can be done each week to support these monthly goals? At this point, focus more on how you can support your monthly goals, and less on the BHAGs. Perhaps you need to exercise two or three times per week to support your weight loss goal. Refraining from alcohol consumption four times per week can deter the allowance of excess calories toward fat storage. Ensuring to get six to eight hours of sleep each night is another simple and effective weekly tactic to maintain the hormone and immune system balance to ensure we have a body free of illness capable of exercise in a well-rested state.
Every human has the potential to set realistic goals and establish them. However, the challenge comes with having the courage to confront those goals. Maybe we can accept the challenge to get away from the cacophony of cell phones, television, and the endless hamster wheel of stress. Sit down, stay still, be quiet and jot down three fitness goals you’ve wanted to achieve. Such a small number can produce phenomenal life changing results if we can take the time to write those goals down.
Sean McCawley, the founder and owner of Napa Tenacious Fitness in Napa, CA, welcomes questions and comments. Reach him at 707-287-2727, napatenacious@gmail.com or visit the website napatenaciousfitness.com.
