Why Haven't You Achieved Your Goals?
- Date: 2008-07-11 - Word Count: 471
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If you ask most people in the gym why they are there you will find that their responses typically get lumped into 2 categories. The first is that they simple don't have a real reason for being there. They just like to workout or enjoy checking-out the girls in the aerobics class.
In the second category are the guys that tell you they want to gain muscle, lose fat, increase, their bench press, increase their vertical jump, etc. Basically they want to do everything under the sun. While this is admirable, it's a completely unfocused way of accomplishing things.
I find the best strategy is to have one goal at a time. For most people this will either be to gain muscle or to lose fat. If you need to do both, focus on losing fat first.
Picking one of these two options is not a goal though. To be considered a true goal it needs to be measurable. After all, if my goal is to gain muscle then after gaining ½ a pound the first week I can call it quits. A better goal is to say I want to gain 10 pounds of muscle.
Once you have made your goal measurable you need to give yourself a timeline. This can be an arbitrary date that you want to achieve your goal by, but I find it works much better if you have a date that you can't change such as an event like a vacation.
Let's say my goal is to gain 10 pounds of muscle in the next 10 weeks. I can then break this down into smaller goals of gaining 1 pound every week.
Once I have that goal set I need to determine what behaviors will get me there. I know that the two main factors in gaining muscle are nutrition and training. So I identify a couple behaviors associated with each.
For nutrition I decide that I must eat something every 3 hours and that I must take in 4,000 kcal per day. For training I decide that I must train with weights for 3 days per week and I must increase my squat by 5 pounds each week.
Now these may or may not be the correct behaviors for my goal, and there may be some more behaviors that I need to focus on, but if I've chosen the correct behaviors and I execute them throughout the week I will find that by the end of the week I have gained my one pound of muscle.
This is a very simple and effective strategy for goal-setting. If you follow it your training sessions will be much more productive since you have a goal that you're working towards.
Again, you must choose the correct behaviors to make this work. To do this I recommend getting professional advice on your training and nutrition programs.
In the second category are the guys that tell you they want to gain muscle, lose fat, increase, their bench press, increase their vertical jump, etc. Basically they want to do everything under the sun. While this is admirable, it's a completely unfocused way of accomplishing things.
I find the best strategy is to have one goal at a time. For most people this will either be to gain muscle or to lose fat. If you need to do both, focus on losing fat first.
Picking one of these two options is not a goal though. To be considered a true goal it needs to be measurable. After all, if my goal is to gain muscle then after gaining ½ a pound the first week I can call it quits. A better goal is to say I want to gain 10 pounds of muscle.
Once you have made your goal measurable you need to give yourself a timeline. This can be an arbitrary date that you want to achieve your goal by, but I find it works much better if you have a date that you can't change such as an event like a vacation.
Let's say my goal is to gain 10 pounds of muscle in the next 10 weeks. I can then break this down into smaller goals of gaining 1 pound every week.
Once I have that goal set I need to determine what behaviors will get me there. I know that the two main factors in gaining muscle are nutrition and training. So I identify a couple behaviors associated with each.
For nutrition I decide that I must eat something every 3 hours and that I must take in 4,000 kcal per day. For training I decide that I must train with weights for 3 days per week and I must increase my squat by 5 pounds each week.
Now these may or may not be the correct behaviors for my goal, and there may be some more behaviors that I need to focus on, but if I've chosen the correct behaviors and I execute them throughout the week I will find that by the end of the week I have gained my one pound of muscle.
This is a very simple and effective strategy for goal-setting. If you follow it your training sessions will be much more productive since you have a goal that you're working towards.
Again, you must choose the correct behaviors to make this work. To do this I recommend getting professional advice on your training and nutrition programs.
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