What is the big deal about setting goals?

Seems like when you think about starting a fitness program, or getting back to one, setting goals is the first step. Why?

There are good reasons to set goals. They give you a path to follow, they give you inspiration, and motivation… but they can also be a real sabotage-inducing-life-sucking pain in the rear.

Goals become a problem when you’re not seeing progress.

Goals can be arbitrary. I know – that’s a controversial statement. But, hear me out.

Let’s say, you really want to lose 20 pounds. Ok, how are you going to do that? With proper diet and exercise, right?

But, how much exercise? Will you always be able to fit it in in the midst of life’s happenings? And what about diet? Are you going to have to restrict yourself to carrots and celery for 6 months? And what happens when you go off of said diet? How long will it take to lose the 20 pounds?

So ok, you want to lose these 20 pounds, but there are a ton of factors involved and behaviors that have to happen in order for the 20 pounds to come off.

And what happens when life overflows and you get off track for a while? You stop seeing results and suddenly, you start justifying scrapping the whole plan.

This is what sabotages most of us right out of a healthy lifestyle.

We see where we want to be, and there is just too big of a gap between there, and where we are now. How do we easily close the gap?

Set goals that are not arbitrary and that are actually helpful.

It’s totally ok to have the bigger goals – the “lose 20 pounds,” the “look ripped in a bathing suit” types of goals. But, you’ve got to start with something that’s totally do-able. And, you have to think about reaching your goals in terms of small things you can do – small incremental changes that you will actually be able to implement into your life and not go crazy.

Here’s how:

Start with things like “I will commit to exercising 30 minutes, 3 times per week.”  Or, “I will limit my desert to half of what I normally eat.”

These are behavior goals – things that you DO have control over. You can see that you are doing them or not doing them.

Those are things that are totally within reach, and they are small enough that your ego won’t completely freak out about because it doesn’t really look like you’re trying to upset the apple cart on your whole entire life at one time. Remember – change isn’t easy. And when faced with coming out of our comfort zone, we tend to fall back into it very easily.

If you can make these small changes in a way that’s totally manageable and that totally fits into your life, before you know it, they become larger changes and before too long, you’ve achieved the big goal.

And hey, if you want even more wonderful information on being healthy and creating a healthy lifestyle, check out Prevention Not Prescriptions over at The Kathleen Show Blog. Also, while you’re there, check out Kathleen’s podcast – it is fabulous.