If you’re trying to get in shape, or simply achieve any health and fitness-orientated goals, you’ll know all too well that mentally, it can be a real struggle to get yourself motivated and focussed.
It’s all well and good waking up one morning and convincing yourself that this will be the start of your road to a fitter, healthier you. The only problem, however, is the fact that without any goals or targets to aim for, getting yourself fitter and healthier will be considerably tougher.
Setting goals will give you a metaphorical road to travel down, and it will help to keep you focussed and on the path to success, whatever your goals may be.
If you are looking to set and achieve your goals, you may wish to consider setting what are known as SMART goals. But what are SMART goals and how can they help you get fitter and healthier? Let’s find out, shall we?
What exactly are SMART goals?
SMART is an acronym for ‘Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timely’.
SMART goals are unique in that these are goals that are set under a very unique set of criteria to ensure that you meet and achieve these goals within a certain duration of time.
If you are looking to set goals based upon health and fitness for example, if you set SMART goals based upon this you will have to work your way through each of the 5 components. This helps to keep you focussed on meeting your objectives, it ensures you stay on schedule, and it makes it much easier to track and monitor your progress.
Setting SMART goals
If you are serious about meeting your fitness goals, here’s a look at how to set SMART goals.
Specific
To make sure your goal is effective and that you succeed, you need to make sure it is specific. Don’t just set a goal based upon losing weight for example, instead, be specific and set a specific weight loss goal of, say, 10 kilograms.
Measurable
Up next we have the ‘M’ for measurable,
Measurable goals are important because you need to see how far you’ve come, and what progress you’ve made.
Again, weight loss is very measurable because, ideally, with each weigh-in, the numbers will have gone down, you’ll be lighter, and you can compare your weight now to what it was at the start of your weight loss journey.
Achievable
When you set goals, you need them to be achievable and realistic. Setting yourself a weight loss goal of 10 kilograms for example, is certainly achievable. Setting yourself a weight loss goal of 10 kilograms in just 2 weeks, however, is not achievable.
When you set SMART goals, if your goals are unrealistic or unachievable, you’re setting yourself up for failure.
Relevant
When you set goals, they need to be relevant to you and what you want to achieve.
Ask yourself why you’ve set this specific goal and ask yourself what achieving it will do for you and how it will help you.
Identify the main benefit or benefits that your goal will provide you with and suddenly your SMART goal/goals will make a whole lot more sense to you.
Timely
Finally, we have timely.
When setting goals, we need deadlines for a whole host of different reasons. Setting a weight loss goal of 10 kilograms is all well and good, but when do you want to lose it by? If you have no deadline there’s no urgency.
When you set SMART goals, be sure to give yourself a deadline as that way you’ll have something to aim for.
