Written by: Drew Schultz, Personal Trainer @ O2 Fitness Falls/540
Hopefully your workouts are going well, but could they be going even better? Do you have a clear picture in your mind of what you want to achieve? Is it a more streamlined physique? Do you want more energy? Is there an upcoming event you're training for? These are goals, positive outcomes, that you are working towards.
Do you have absolute clarity on what it is you're trying to achieve? Did you sit down with a personal trainer for your introductory assessment when you joined the club? Did you write down your goals?
University studies show that people who write down their goals are 10 times as likely to achieve them. Why is that? We will say to ourselves, "Oh, I don't need to write them down, I know what they are". That's great, but we are even more susceptible to our subconscious making excuses for us than we are to our conscious mind when we think about our goal we hope for. This is why you must write it down.
When you write down your goal, it becomes almost tangible; the brain cements it into your subconscious. Its like your brain has just made the goal more real for you.
If your goal is to lose forty pounds, write down "I am losing forty pounds." Notice it is in the present tense. It again seems more real to you now. At this point, you will need to write down the steps you will need to take to get to your goal.
If the goal is to lose forty pounds, what needs to happen? "Less calories" is most likely. Then what? "Change diet or increase exercise". Great. How are we going to change your diet? Is it cutting back on portion size, or changing the protein to carb ratio? Both, or neither? How are we going to increase your exercise? Frequency, or duration? What about intensity?
You must also set a timeline, albeit a reasonable one. What is a reasonable timeline? A personal trainer will help guide you through that process. I may sit down with a new O2 Fitness member, and they say they want to lose forty pounds. When asked what their timeline is, they say "one month" but it takes careful, expert guidance to help them realize that you can safely lose one to two quality pounds of fat per week. This means that the realistic timeline for achieving their goal of losing forty pounds will take anywhere from four to nine months. What will you do, exactly, over the course of those four to nine months?
From the above questions we have asked, you can see how writing down your goals is a very introspective process. You will find answers you did not have prior to writing down your goals. Our O2 Fitness personal training clients have found that this process has helped them immensely. Prior to writing down their goals, they felt that they were spinning their wheels, hoping that something would work, with maybe just some time, effort, and luck. Once they had their goals clearly outlined, with a real, organized plan of action, they started seeing concrete results.
Resolve today to write down your goals, and you will find yourself moving forward towards achieving them.