About 3 years ago I made the decision to start working out. This wasn’t about my image or even not liking the way my body looked, it was more so about just wanting to be healthier.
I wanted to live a healthy lifestyle. This to me meant I wanted to eat healthier foods for my body, I wanted to exercise every day, and just be more active on a day to day basis. I always admired this kind of lifestyle for so many reasons.
The main reason being the fact that I believed living a healthy lifestyle showed that you cared about your overall health. I didn’t want to reach my old age and be dealing with the health problems that I see a lot of my family members dealing with. So, I wanted to start taking better care of my health now rather than later.
When I started my healthy lifestyle journey there was so much that I didn’t know, and there’s still a lot that I don’t know. But the one thing I have come to understand so well is the importance of setting goals related to your health, wellness, and any fitness.
Years ago, you wouldn’t have been able to convince me that setting fitness goals was necessary for your health and wellness journey. Now, I know that it is. Having fitness goals is the number one way to keep yourself accountable for everything that you are and are not doing to help you reach those goals.
If you just mindlessly embark on your journey you’ll never know when you’ve reached a life changing milestone (no matter how big or small it is). With goals you are able to track your progress and see just how far you have come. The best part is that it’s also a great way for you to actually see what specifically you are doing that is furthering you along your journey.
Goal setting was something that I started to do about a year ago and I found it harder to commit to then I thought it would be. This was because I didn’t really understand what it meant to have a fitness goal, how to set it, and more importantly how to stick to it. However, with so many trials and errors that I’ve experienced in the past year, I’ve learned a thing or two about how to keep your fitness goals.
And I’m going to share them with you!
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Why it’s important to have fitness goals
First things first, I bet you’re wondering how having fitness goals can help you achieve your overall health goals.
The number one reason you want to have fitness goals is because it holds you accountable for every little thing that is either pushing you to reach your goals, or holding you back. Think about your fitness goals like a roller coaster.
There are going to be many ups and downs, turns that you expect to encounter, and some that you were not anticipating. In spite of that you’re only on the ride for the thrills that it can bring you. When it comes to fitness this is very much how your journey will begin.
There will be times where you’re crushing it. Times when you reach your peak and can’t really move forward. There will be things you will encounter that you expected to, and will therefore be prepared to push past them. But there will also be things that will sort of happen spontaneously, and you will have to work through them as they happen.
All this to say that your journey will not be easy, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be fun and meaningful.
I know how do you make fitness fun, right? While I do believe that this varies from person to person, one way I have found to keep myself engaged and motivated to continue my journey is to have fitness goals motivating me along the way.
That’s how you make fitness fun and meaningful.
When you set a goal, it gives you something to work towards. This isn’t the bigger goal that you want to achieve, but smaller goals within the bigger one that is going to make achieving the bigger goal all the more realistic.
For example, if you want to lose 150 pounds you are going to need smaller goals to help you get there. This may be something like having a goal of lose 10 pounds once a month.
This takes away the pressure to put in all the hard work to lose 150 pounds right off the back. Instead, you’ve created smaller goals that are more realistic and achievable in a shorter amount of time, that are ultimately going to help you achieve that bigger goal.
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How to keep your fitness goals
So, what are the tips that I’ve picked up this past year to help me stick to all my fitness goals? Let’s take a look at them below.
#1 write out your goals
If there is anything that you take away from this post let it be that you absolutely have to write out your goals in order to know what they are.
When I first started creating goals related to my health and wellness journey, I never wrote anything down. Instead, I did my best to just be reminded mentally of what those goals were. However, this past year I started to write them down and I saw an instant change in the way that I was approaching my workouts and tackling my eating habits.
Writing out your goals is very much like writing a to-do list. You have a list of things that you want to achieve and it’s a daily reminder to work towards them. The only way you know what needs to get done is by seeing it written out in front of you. Creating and sticking to a fitness goal works the same way.
For example, if you have a goal to lose 150 pounds, this is the bigger goal that you want to write down. Seeing this written out is a silent reminder to you to make working towards this goal a priority.
When you write out your goals you are making a commitment to make them just as much of a priority for you as all the other things happening in your life. This essentially means that you are making a commitment to create balance in your life so that you can manage all the things happening, including actually work towards your fitness goals.
#2 work on them daily
Much like a to-do list you need to actually work towards your fitness goals. This means that you have to do a lot more than just write them out and commit to making them a priority. You have to actually work on them daily.
Daily may seem excessive but the reality is that the more you work towards them the more of a habit they will become. Creating habits is the key to this tip. Habits are things that we just naturally do, as though they are encoded in our DNA and we don’t really have to put much thought into them.
This is what your fitness goals need to be. You not only need to create goals that are meaningful and realistic, but goals that you can also work towards daily.
Going back to the example of the 150-pound weight loss, the ideal way to work on this goal daily would be to simply exercise every day. How long you exercise will depend on what your monthly weight loss goal is. If it’s to lose 5 pounds a month, then daily exercise of 15 minutes on average a day should be enough.
As you can see achieving your fitness goals is much more than just setting them and waiting for them to happen. You have to be willing to put in the hard, and make the necessary changes in your lifestyle that are going to help you reach those goals.
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#3 have an accountability partner
While I am a believer in the idea that creating smaller goals is a way to hold yourself accountable for reaching the bigger goals, I also believe that you need an accountability partner. This is going to be someone who is going to encourage you to work on your goals no matter what.
This can be a bit tricky because you want someone who is going to encourage and support you along your journey. Not someone who is going to push you or try to force you to work on your goals. All your fitness goals must be internal, you have to want them for yourself. Otherwise they won’t hold much weight.
When your goals are intrinsic then your accountability partner is simply there for the ride. They are there to root for you to keep going when you are at your best, and help you work through all the hardships when you are at your lowest.
They are not there to set your goals for you, or to even tell you how to achieve them. Their main purpose is to keep you in high spirits and remind of you why you began when you feel like giving up.
There are many different ways that an accountability partner can help you along your journey. Here are a few that I personally like to do for others, as well as have them do for me:
- Exercise with you
- Try new foods with you
- Check in with you daily to see how you’re doing
- Participate in activities with you
- Help you keep track of your daily habits
Choosing an accountability is no joke. You’re going to want someone who will actually hold you accountable to the same degree that you are holding yourself. Remember, the goal is to reach your fitness goals. The best way to get there is to have someone in addition to yourself that is helping you get there.
So be wise and very mindful of who you choose as your accountability partner. It’s literally a life changing decision.
#4 don’t make a big deal out of them
Have you ever wondered why so many people are not able to reach their goals? Well there are a couple of reasons for this. Perhaps the two biggest reasons are because the goals set weren’t realistic, and the individual was obsessed with achieving those goals.
It’s important to have a meaningful relationship with your goals, but the one thing you don’t want to do is obsess over them. This is because when you do so then reaching the goal becomes a matter of achieving it just so that you can say you did it, and less of the reason you set the goal to begin with.
This can be hard because when you set a fitness goals you want to make it a priority. The best way to make working towards those goals a priority is by making it a habit. How do you make something a habit? By essentially obsessing over it. However, there is a healthy and right way to do this.
While you want to be obsessed with your fitness goals, you don’t want to obsess them. I know this sound like the same thing so let me explain.
When you are obsessed with your fitness goals it means you are passionate about them. They mean something to you and they represent the changes that you really want to make in your life. So being obsessed with losing 150 pounds isn’t about your image, but more so about the longevity of your health.
When you obsess over your fitness goals you are creating an unhealthy relationship with that goal. This is because you are making the importance of reaching this goal something that it shouldn’t be. For example, if you want to lose 150 pounds because someone told you needed to, then you can become obsessed with losing the weight only because you want to improve upon your image. This then creates the relationship that your fitness goals are only important because they represent a part of you that needs to be “fixed” or improved only because someone said so.
See the difference?
The bottom line with this last tip is to ensure that all your fitness goals are things related to your health that matter to you. If you want to lose weight make sure it’s to better your health. If you want to tone your body make sure it’s because you want to be stronger physically. That way when you actually start the journey of working towards them, you’re doing it all for the right reasons.
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All in all
Getting healthy and in shape can be easier than we all make it out to be.
When you look at the bigger picture, you’re seeing all the positive things that you want for your health. However, the key to making those wants a reality is to break the bigger goal down into smaller ones.
These tips are things that I have been doing consistently since making changes in the way I approach my health, wellness, and fitness goals, and I’ve seen an improvement ever since.
While I still have a long way to go to achieve my overall health goals, I know that the little things I’m doing now to help me get there matters so much. I’m doing this by creating smaller and more realistic goals so the bigger ones don’t seem so intimidating.
And you know what, since doing so I haven’t thrown in the towel yet!
The road to reaching your goals is never easy, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun and meaningful experiences along the way.
What do you do to help you stick to your fitness goals? I’d love to hear about it!
-Xo
Kimora
I needed this! I have such a hard time sticking to my goals…maybe this year will be the year.