How are your fitness goals coming along? If you’re anything like the majority of people, those goals you made for yourself at the beginning of the year may or may not still be in progress. Far too often, we start our year off with the best intentions but find ourselves struggling to actually commit to the goals we set for ourselves.
Below are four reasons why you may be finding yourself off track with your goals:
Non Specific Goals
Too often, we find ourselves making overly generic goals without a specific plan attached to them. For example, many of us start the year wanting to “lose weight”. However, if there is no actionable plan with specific details of how this will be achieved, our goal of losing weight is about as effective as the pictures on our fitness inspo Pinterest board. Making specific goals such as “Lose 5 pounds this month by walking every day and eating in a calorie deficit” is much more likely to yield results.
Too Many Goals
Another common mistake is creating a laundry list of goals for ourselves to complete. Now matter how ambitious we might be, too many goals can make us unfocused and overwhelmed. It’s not impossible to be working on several goals at once. But having a list of twenty goals that require a significant time investment is just setting yourself up for failure. Taking the time to figure out what’s truly important to you will help you focus your list on only those goals that will be the most beneficial.
Unrealistic Goals
It’s easy to shoot for the stars when we are contemplating goals. That being said, we are most successful when we are honest about what we can reasonably attain. Rather than set ourselves up for failure, it’s important to set goals that although might be a stretch, are not completely unattainable. When we set goals that are unrealistic, we set ourselves up for disappointment. Not only are we unlikely to achieve these goals, but we are also less likely to set goals in the future for a fear of not being able to achieve future goals either.
Lack of Accountability/Support
Not having a way to be accountable for the goals you set is a surefire way to create an easy way to fail. No matter how much grit and willpower we believe we have, the biggest motivator is often outside support and accountability. This can be as simple as having a friend who is aware of your goals or even a broader community that is working on the same goal or is on a similar journey. No matter how you go about this, a lack of accountability or support will ultimately make achieving your goals more difficult than it needs to be.
Making our goals specific, realistic, and having a source of accountability will dramatically increase our likelihood to follow through.
