If you have never actually sat down before and set a ‘formal’ training goal it may seem a daunting task, and an easier way maybe just to ‘wing it’ and not bother with one. Well, the choice is of course yours, but…..Hopefully you have read my previous post on why you need to set goals !!
I’m not going to go over old ground here, but needless to say, setting goals, achievements, what you want to gain or lose and planning how to do this is the single most important element and investment in time you can make! If you follow my guidance below, in fact, it should not take much time at all to set a realistic and achievable goal that you can practically work towards everyday, taking the first, basic, fundamental steps, in the right direction, to achieving whatever you are training towards. If you don’t do this I will wish you all the luck in the world…..because quite simply you will just be guessing! Guessing what you need to do and guessing how to do it!!
You can do the below in just a few minutes, but the longer you take to carefully consider your answers the better and more realistic your results will be. The effort you put in at this stage will directly affect the results you get back! Okay – I fully appreciate this is the ‘boring bit’, this is not the ‘Gucci’ blood, sweat and tears bit of working out in a fancy gym, making loads grunting noises and basically shouting to everyone in the immediate vicinity ’ look at me…!’…..bit over dramatic? maybe! but I think you get the picture of what I am trying to say.
It’s the planning, the goal setting, the research and everything else that goes on away from the gym, behind the scenes, that makes all the difference to whether you achieve your goals or not….FACT!
When planning these goals it is best practice to write an overall ‘long term’ goal (your ultimate dream, goal, achievement) as well as a series of ‘short term’ goals (the stepping stones along the way to achieving this). Both these goals are compiled in exactly the same way following my guidance, using the S.M.A.R.T.E.R. model here.
In order to be effective your goals need to be……
Quite simply….Your goal needs to be very specific to what you want to achieve. think hard about what you ultimately want to achieve and record it! Don’t simply put lose weight or gain muscle. Record how much, be specific with figures or even cut out pictures from magazines or cut and paste them from the internet!
No-brainer really! Whatever your training goal you need to be able to measure or quantify your progress in someway. However there are still people visiting gyms, training hard and not recording a damn thing!! so when they ask themselves how effective their six month bulk has been or how much faster they are running 5 miles, they haven’t got a clue! if you can or wont measure your goal how do you know if its working?
Every goal you set needs to be achievable or there is just no point working towards something that will just never happen. Your goals need to be routed in reality to obviously make them achievable. However do not underestimate your abilities, aim high and be prepared to work hard and most transformation goals will be achievable given time.
Having a time frame for both your long term and short term goals is also vitally important. A long term goal could be a year, it could be a few months or it could be over a number of years, but it needs to have some kind of time limit placed upon it. Short term goals could be done on a weekly or monthly basis, whatever you feel is most appropriate to go towards making up the long term goal. You have got to be working to some kind of timescale – This also provides great motivation to work that little bit harder sometimes, when appropriate and not miss training sessions!
This is arguably the most important part of goal setting. Checking back to see how, if at all your performance could be improved to work more efficiently towards achieving your goals. At this point you could even find out that your goal is no longer relevant and will give you the opportunity to change it to something that is more suited to you at this time.
With experience the above model will become very easy to use and you will find it extremely useful to have and refer to. It does not have to be set in stone. You may find that as you progress, your priorities, goals and what you want to achieve change and so by making slight alterations to this document you can reflect these changes. However don’t not get hung up by trying to get this perfect, use it how it most benefits you, but spend some time on it and you will reap the rewards further down the line.
As always I will be on hand to assist you through any problems you may have by giving you advice or answering any questions about the above model.
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