When you come to the gym in China Hills, CA, you’ll be asked about your ultimate fitness goals. Those aren’t the goals you’ll be working on each week or month, although in reality they are when you work on weekly goals that lead to achieving them. You see, ultimate fitness goals are the goals you want to achieve after working out for quite a while. They might be goals to shed 100 pounds or more or to compete in an Iron Man competition. For most people, they aren’t goals that are accomplished in a week, a month or sometimes even in a year.
An ultimate goal is big and can look overwhelming.
No matter what you do that requires a period of time, it’s broken down into smaller slices. Education is broken down to grade levels and then to subject matter. Sports are broken down to various levels of achievement, from beginner to advanced, just as video games are. The same is true for fitness goals. Unless you break a big goal down to mini goals, you have no benchmarks, or joy, just a long road ahead of you that can be quite discouraging at times.
Each mini goal has a specific time frame, exact outcome and way to achieve it.
When you’re breaking down your ultimate goal, what you’re really doing is defining steps on how to achieve it. By losing two pounds a week for a year, you’ll have lost 104 pounds. Each week, your goal will be the same, but you must identify how you’ll achieve it that week. Your methods will probably be healthy eating and exercise.
You can keep your eye on the brass ring, but focusing on smaller goals gives a boost of confidence and determination.
One nice thing about mini or weekly goals is that they start over every week or bi-weekly, depending on how the person decided. You can expect failure one of those weeks. It happens. However, the next week gives you a chance for redemption. You’re not swimming in a pool of failure, always trying to catch up and overcome a deficit. Sometimes, have to try again and mini goals give you the opportunity to do that with a clean slate.
- No matter what your fitness goal, it takes hard work and healthy eating. Whether you’re trying to lose weight, get stronger, get healthier, build endurance or feel better, those are the two areas where your focus should be.
- Getting fit should also include getting adequate sleep and hydration. You can include goals to schedule more sleep or drink more water.
- Setting smaller goals and achieving them helps you believe that the ultimate goals are possible.
- Your program should be unique to you and developed for your own level of fitness.