MAKE 2021 YOUR BEST YEAR YET

Did you know that the average person spends more time planning their summer holiday than they do there life ahead!!

After this year, everyone is looking to 2021 to be a far better year. Around Christmas many people are looking forward to a New Year and making New Year resolutions covering everything from getting fitter to a new job. So how do you take a resolution from a thought to reality?

Setting a resolution is setting a goal and goals need to be set in a certain way to give you the very best chance of hitting that goal and having that amazing sense of satisfaction. There are many different goal setting techniques, and we are going to look at the SMART system and how you can make this work for you.

Before we look at SMART lets look at some of the goals that you want to make and linking them to far reaching goals. A very common question is “where do you want to be in 5 years’ time?”, now this might seem simple but let’s be honest do any of us know that answer without a goal? A great way to help with this is to look at what is called The Pyramid of Success, with the ultimate goal being on the top and the bricks below making up a series of goals, so lower down there are more small goals leading to the big goal.

Let’s look at a goal for 5 years’ time.

'I want to be running my own fitness business.'

So that is the top of the pyramid, that is the goal and what you base your success on is attaining that goal. This type of goal is called an outcome goal, you either reach it or you don`t, but many of the goals below are smaller performance goals, smaller goals that you need to reach to reach the top. Your goal maybe 3, 4 or 5 years away to be the top of the pyramid, as it is a long-term goal.

A mid term goal is usually 3 years’ time in the 5-year plan, followed by a short-term goal of 12 months and micro goals being monthly and macro goals weekly. For our fitness business goal then the mid term goal might be part time PT instructor, short term goal be a qualified instructor in a discipline and the short term goals a combination of personal fitness and learning. Now you could turn this process into anything you like.

So how do you set your mid-term, short term and micro goals? You set them by using SMART objectives. When you set a goal, it needs to be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timed, regardless of goal, the only goal that does not fit into the above is your long term/dream goal.

SPECIFIC: the goal needs to be a very specific thing

MEASURABLE: you need to be able to measure the goal

ACHIEVABLE: it needs to be 75% achievable, so you do need to push yourself to reach it

REALISTIC: it must be realistic for you to aim at the goal

TIMED: it needs a date to achieve it by

Let’s look at this simple goal setting sheet and an example of using it

Long Term Goal:

Own Fitness Gym

Mid Term Goal:

Part Time PT Instructor

Short Term Goals

Weight Training Qualification, Nutrition Qualification, Boxing Qualification, BMI = 6%, 10k under 20 minutes, Lift 180kg clean and jerk

Micro Goals

Weight Training Qualification – Learn 3 weight training techniques per week/Track progress by choosing 1 technique to train for a month/Record progress/Video each technique

Macro Goals

Weight Training Qualification – Learn 3 weightlifting techniques per week Book on to a weightlifting course/Record current body size i.e. weight, muscle size, BMI/join a specific weight training gym/decide on ideal weight training outcomes/speak to PT

If you look at the above and take weight training from the top of the pyramid down, there are over 10 specific actual goals through the journey and all can have SMART applied to them.

As Nike says – just do it!

Go set some goals, even if it is to lose 1 stone by next Christmas or climb Everest in 5 years time.