How to Set Goals You’ll Stick to this Summer

Whether taking a “new year, new me” approach or getting on top of things immediately, personal trainer Monique Craft has the method for you when it comes to setting goals. She’ll motivate you to achieve your goals, not just in health but in all areas of your life.

The days are now longer and the weather is starting to heat up. Swimsuits are coming back out, and the desire for health and fitness results are on the rise again! Not only this, but our fitness goals this year have been impacted by the shake-up of lockdowns, gyms closing, job loss and so much more. So, maybe it’s just time to reassess and set new goals to finish 2020 motivated, driven and strong!

You certainly don’t need to wait until New Year’s Eve, when you’re popping champagne and counting down to midnight, to set goals. Grab some paper and a pen (or open your iPhone notes) and start now. Not Monday, NOW! (Unless it’s Monday when you’re reading this, of course).

Let me also remind you, these goals don’t just have to be fitness goals. Let’s work on personal goals, financial goals, nutritional goals, sleep goals; whatever area in your life you need direction, a boost of motivation and self- confidence!

Getting Started

Let’s take advantage of the longer days and warmer weather to enhance our goals. We now have more daylight to squeeze in outdoor runs and walks, surfs, tennis games, bike rides and more; before or after work, and on the weekends!

Notice how I listed a few activities here. This is because you can reach health and fitness goals in many more ways than just “workouts in the gym”. In fact, sometimes the gym is the reason people are held back from reaching their goals, as they don’t have the confidence or knowledge of where to start and what to do, so they shy away.

Movement is medicine, it boosts our mental health, alongside our physical health, of course. When we’re in a positive state of mind, we’re more confident within ourselves, more determined to eat well, and to move and be active. We become more productive in the workplace and more pleasant in our relationships. A positive mindset can improve all areas of your life, so start with movement to boost the mood and watch it boost the achievement rate of all your goals too!

On eating well, finding My Muscle Chef has significantly enhanced my health and fitness goals. MYMC meals are exceptionally nutritious and keep my body fuelled well in shape. On top of this, they also give me more time to exercise and execute tasks to tick off my list. It’s such a blessing to have all the shopping, meal prep and hassle in the kitchen done for you!

Did You Know? The average adult will spend around 183 hours a year on food prep. This equates to a staggering 10,980 hours per lifetime. Or, in other words, about 1.25 years. Feels like a bit much, doesn’t it?

So, thank you MYMC for giving me more hours to strive towards crushing my goals!

What’s the Best Way to Set Goals?

Fitness goals are important, as they hold us accountable, encourage us to push through discomfort and inflate our definition of possible! But they need to be personalised and they need to be SMART!

If you haven’t heard of the SMART acronym for goal setting, let me explain…

S - Specific: Clearly define your goals. They can’t be vague like “I want to get in shape”. They should be more like, “I want to lose 5kg.” Think of the popular “5 Ws”: Who, What, When, Where, Why?
M - Measurable: Ensure there is a way to measure progress. This helps us stay on track and ultimately, to know whether or not we were successful.
A - Achievable: Your goals should be defined well enough that you can achieve them, but stretch you enough to challenge you! It’s a great feeling to tick something off your list.
R - Relevant: Goals relevant to you! Consider your lifestyle, resources, commitments, free time and current fitness levels and curate them to the best of your ability.
T - Timely: Your goal needs a start and finish date. This allows you to work out a plan to achieve the goal, setting daily actions and smaller milestones to conquer. If your goal also isn’t time constrained, you won’t feel an urgency, thus lack motivation to achieve it.

This approach to goal setting is an incredible tool for everyone to use! It’s easy to see success through this method, from beginners hoping to start an exercise program to Olympic athletes! Using the SMART goal setting structure is a much more rewarding journey mentally than the Instagram Method.

It can be easy to scroll on Instagram and see images and videos of “fitspo” and feel motivated and inspired to achieve what they’re achieving, but then quickly feel envious and deflated. Basing your goals off what you see others achieving is neither smart nor sensible, neither productive nor practical!

Everyone is different! Every body is different. Everyone’s circumstances and journeys in life are different! As such, we can’t make our goals and expectations the same! Set SMART goals for you, that are relative and reachable!

I’ve personally used this method to set goals in the past and will continue to do so in the future. Another thing I do to stay on track with my SMART goals is Sunday Scheduling! Every Sunday, I look at the week ahead and schedule my workouts while planning my week! Organisation is an essential element in achieving goals! Schedule your workouts in your diary like they’re meetings with your boss! Bosses don’t cancel, and neither will you!

The Importance of Eating Well

Make your movement a priority, but equally, pay plenty of attention to your nutrition. This fuels your brain and gives you the body enhancement results you might be after. Food also affects our mood, so select wisely! Making selections from the My Muscle Chef online menu is a wise move to make. The healthy meals are easily accessible in your fridge and ready to go in minutes. This gives you more time to work on attacking the week and those goals!

It’s also important to look over your goals each week to make adjustments to how our body is adapting and progressing. Readjustments may need to be made to keep pushing ourselves outside of our comfort zones in order to achieve greater results. If change doesn’t happen, growth doesn’t occur!

What changes are you going to make to your life today to finish 2020 strong and come in hot to 2021? 2020 isn’t a year to write off, it’s a year we learn to rewrite goals as we become SMARTer and stronger!

GO GET IT!

If you’d like to make a SMART choice, check out our Goal-Based Plans and see positive change in your life today!