Bulletproof your goal setting!
January.....the month everyone and their dog sets new goals to take over the world but in reality things don't always work out as we once dreamed back on January 1st. Lets change that in 2018.
At any given moment we have 2 options: step forward into growth or step back into safety
As a personal trainer and fitness coach for the past 10 or so years I've had countless sit downs with clients on where they want to go and what they want to achieve in 3 months, 6 months, 12 months and 5 years. I wish I could brag about my 100% success rate with all my clients on how they got ripped 6 packs or ran that marathon they told me they were going to run but the truth is not many have stuck it out. Hopefully this blog helps you stay on track.
The framework we're going to use is OST:
O - OBJECTIVE
S - STRATEGY
T - TACTICS
O
Your objective needs to be the finish line. Make your objective SMART, specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time determined. I can't emphasise enough writing everything down, words are just noise, put it on paper and make yourself accountable. We're going to use the example of - loose 2 stone.
S- loose 2 stone in body weight
M- I can weigh myself to track progress
A- Only 2 years ago I was 2 stone lighter so I can do this
R- Yes its realistic, I've let myself go and enough is enough
T- I'm going to give myself 24 weeks - thats 1 pound a week.
S
The strategy is a plan of action designed to reach your objective. Don't over complicate it and give yourself a deadline.
1. Exercise more and find something that motivates me. I can train on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays before work.
2. Reduce my total food intake. I'm going to find the best method to track this and learn more about what types of food I should be eating.
T
Your tactics are where the magic happens and they are the daily behaviours that are going to make the objective a reality. Not every day is going to be easy and quite often you will mess up but being resilient is the key to making this change. I recommend using a diary or journal to track your progress weekly and daily.
1. Train 3 times a week at the gym and walk for 30 minutes on the days I'm not in the gym.
2. Eat no more than 1500 calories each day and use an app to track all my food intake.
3. Weigh myself every Sunday morning at 9:00 (I like weigh ins on Sunday or Monday mornings as we often slip up the most at weekends and its a true reflection of our eating/exercise behaviours).
Once you've outlined your OST its down to YOU and only YOU can make the changes. If your goal is a fitness/health related one this year I strongly recommend discussing your goal with a trainer/coach/ that can give you guidance and advice. Quite often you can set yourself a goal and think that its SMART but a second opinion can bring to light the flaws of what you've set out to do. That isn't a negative and being open to ideas or different ways of achieving something is necessary to build the strongest STRATEGY and TACTICS to make your OST bullet proof.
Good luck with what ever you want to achieve this year and for any advice on fitness/health/weight loss goals in 2018 don't be shy. Fire your questions at us, were in the game to help you....