Setting S.M.A.R.T. Fitness Goals

“I wish I had your motivation. It’s so hard for me to get to the gym because I’m just not motivated.”

“I just want to lose some weight.”
“I don’t know, I’d like to tone up.”
“I want to be healthier.”

Does this all sound familiar?

I can guarantee, lack of motivation is not the problem. You’re lacking a clear understanding of what you are actually working towards.

If you don’t know what you’re working towards, you will accomplish absolutely nothing.

Before we dive into what a S.M.A.R.T. goal is, let’s discuss 4 categories of wellness goals. Go through these categories and decide which apply to you.

Fitness Goal Categories:
Aesthetic; Health; Injury and Pain Management; & Performance

Aesthetic Goals: Your goals are related to changing the appearance of your body. This can include: fat loss; building muscle (hypertrophy); reducing muscle density (atrophy); or growing certain areas (like legs or butt).

Health Goals: Your focus is on managing or eliminating health or mental conditions. This can include (but is definitely not limited to) managing insulin levels; managing PCOS symptoms; reducing blood pressure; and managing anxiety or depression symptoms.

Injury and Pain Management: Previous injuries or surgeries have led you to have reoccurring pain, atrophy, muscular imbalances, or other issues that impact your mobility or day to day movement. This can fall under the “health goal” category; but because corrective training is a specialty of mine, I felt it deserved its own category. I also truly believe that 95% of the population would benefit from corrective training. My mommies with weak core and corporate girlies with desk neck can all benefit from corrective exercises.

Performance Goals: If you have specific exercises or tasks that you want to learn or get better at, this is a performance goal. Getting your first push up or pull up; deadlifting your body weight; carrying a large bag of dog food by yourself; bringing all your groceries in with just one trip; running your first 5k; these are all examples of performance goals.

You can absolutely have multiple goals. Having a primary goal and one or two secondary goals is a great idea. However, more than that can be counter productive.

S.M.A.R.T. Goals

Now that you have a general idea of the type of goals you can work towards; let’s dive deeper and make those goals S.M.A.R.T.

Specific. Measurable. Attainable. Relevant. Timely.

Specific
A SMART goal is SPECIFIC. Saying “I want to lose weight and feel strong” is not enough. “I want to lose 15 pounds, and be able to deadlift my body weight” Is a very specific goal.

Measurable
A measurable goal is a goal that can be “quantified.” Meaning, it can be easily tracked. Some examples of this are: tape measurements, body fat percentage, sports specific goals (decreasing mile run by half a minute).

Attainable
This is where you give yourself a reality check. If you are a single mom with zero support and child care, with a full time or multiple jobs, training for a marathon when you have little running experience is not realistic at this point in your life. The process to achieve your goal has to reasonably fit into your current lifestyle.

Relevant
Does the goal you’re setting make sense for you? Do you enjoy it? Does it transfer to your day to day life?

Timely
Can the goal be accomplished in timely manner? If you have muscular imbalances to correct in your squat and have a hard time holding a 20lb kettlebell, setting a goal of squatting 200lbs is not timely at this moment. It’s a great larger scale goal to have in the back of your mind. But setting smaller goals will give you more immediate wins, and help you build the confidence and structure you need to get to that larger goal.

There is a big difference between…

“I want to look better,” and “I want to lose 4 inches around my waist and 15lbs of body fat. I want to accomplish this in 4 months.”

“I want to feel strong,” versus “I want to be able to do my first push up and be able to pick up my son and place him in the swing without straining my back.”

“I want to be healthy,” versus “I found out I’m pre-diabetic so I want to use exercise as a way to manage my insulin levels”

Being crystal clear about your goals is what ultimately helps you decide what your exercise program and nutrition should look like. Imagine you went on a road trip without having had decided your destination first. If you just start driving, you’ll eventually end up frustrated that you’re driving in circles and getting nowhere.

Are you still unsure about how to set goals for yourself, or how to get there? Request a complimentary consultation call! We’ll work together to create a roadmap that gets you exactly where you want to be.