Do You Even Have a Fitness Plan?

I’m willing to bet…

That if you’re here, you’re in to fitness.

Or maybe you WANT to be into fitness.

And that means taking action. Amiright?

So let me ask you…

WHAT is your goal and HOW are you going to achieve it?

Important question…more important answer.

Do you have an answer?

If not, I’ve got you covered. If you have goals but no plan, read on. If you have both, why aren’t you at the gym?

(jk there are some useful tidbits for the experienced fitness freak in here too).

Here’s the breakdown:

• Why your goal is so important
• How to create a SMART goal that will keep you on track
• The difference between outcome goals and behavior goals (and my personal preference for making it ACTUALLY happen)
• Setting up your own fitness plan
• Putting it all into action

Think of this as your “I’m my own trainer” strategy.

Grab a piece of paper and get ready to hit the ground running.

Truth bomb: if you don’t know WHAT you want and you don’t have an ACTION plan, chances are you aren’t going to go anywhere.

Why your goals are important and how to create them so they are SMART and ACTIONABLE

Goals as Triggers

Your goal should motivate you to act.

Put it this way: if I ask you “what’s your goal”, and you respond with “to lose weight”…I’m going to say “yes I got you, but…”.

How long have you told yourself that you “need to lose weight”, only to do nothing about it? All this proves is that you aren’t inspired but that goal.

Your goal needs to trigger you into action.

Specific goals with deadlines trigger action.

“I want to lose 10 pounds of body fat by June 1^st” triggers action because you know EXACTLY how much weight you want to lose to call it a success…and you have a deadline looming in your future!

Goals as Guidance

It makes sense that as soon as you set a goal, your mind begins to plot a path to reach that goal. When you clearly see your next step, you direct your attention there and begin to move in the right direction.

Example: when you set a goal to run a 5k in May, and sign up for that 5k, you start to see the days/weeks/months between today and May as opportunities to go for a run/cross train/get faster.

(as opposed to opportunities to say “I’ll do it tomorrow”).

Once you start thinking this way, your actions start to follow suite and the results start to come.

Goals as a Measure of Success

SMART goals create awareness. Every day, you should be able to answer the following questions:

• Am I closer to my goal today than I was yesterday?
• Is there something that I can do today that will bring me closer to my goal tomorrow?

If you can’t answer those questions, your goal isn’t SMART.

Fact: results fuel motivation.

Fact: motivation fuels action.

Fact: action fuels results.

If you don’t have an idea of what your SUCCESS looks like, how do you know you’re on the right track? How do you know when to say “Hey, self, you’re a rock star…keep pushing”?

Real Life Example (and why I’m obsessed with behavior goals)

Meet my name-changed-for-privacy-reasons client: Stacy. Stacy came to me with the major goal of getting back to her college weight where she felt strong and confident in her body.

When I asked Stacy how long she’d had these goals, she said “years”.

When I asked Stacy what she’d been doing about it, she responded with silence, before releasing a pent-up torrent of disappointment and frustration with herself for not having achieved these goals yet.

Sound familiar?

Stacy had some MAJOR goals that, when achieved, had the power to change her life.

But Stacy was so focused on the destination and how she would feel once she was there, and she was so consumed by her disappointment in herself that she wasn’t there yet, that she couldn’t see the small wins that she was in fact, making the whole time.

Stacy and I made some adjustments to her goal.

What’s the long-term goal/final destination?

Stacy remembered feeling super strong and confident at her college weight. She worked hard to be there but felt like she could do anything. She was really, emotionally connected to that goal.

How dos that break down into short-term goals?

A specific, shorter-term goal for Stacy was to lose 8 pounds in 2 months. We put an attainable, realistic and measurable number on Stacy’s goal and called it Step 1.

What about action steps?

We came up with 3 habits/actions that Stacy could take DAILY that would improve her chances of attaining her goal. 3 focuses felt big enough to be motivating, but not so big that she couldn’t be 90% sure of her success each day.

Tracking it

Stacy kept a daily log of which actions she nailed, and which actions she missed. Once Stacy was comfortable enough with a habit that it felt like routine, we added another action.

Celebrating the wins

If Stacy hit her goals 90% of the time in a month, we celebrated the achievement. She treated herself to a massage. I bought her a foam roller. We acknowledged her forward momentum and reinforced how spectacular the small wins were!

It wasn’t long before Stacy a) starting chipping away at weight that she hadn’t been able to lose before, b) started feeling more confident in her body and her capabilities (even before reaching her college-days-weight), and c) began to talk less and less about the number on the scale and more and more about how bad ass she felt when she left the gym.

*Cue happy-trainer-tears*

Your Fitness Game Plan

Starts Here: What Do You Want to Achieve?

Do you want to lose body fat? Do you want to gain muscle? Do you want to get better at a sport?

Your answer is your launch pad.

If you want to build muscle…you can’t bounce back and forth between Bodybuilding.coms 12-Weeks to Size plan and Runner’s World Couch to 10k in 60 days program and expect to see major results.

First step: decide what your goal is.

Match Your Goals to the Plan

You hire an accountant to do your taxes. You hire a hair stylist to cut your hair. Shoot, you hire a dog groomer to give your pup a blow out!

But you don’t hire an expert to help get you into shape?

It’s an investment, I get that. But if you can find a trainer who you connect with, who makes you feel better the moment you walk in her door or speak to her on Skype, and she helps you match a workout plan to your goals…Ima say that’s worth it.

If not, there are some definite parameters that you can follow to reach your goals…

And I just so happened to create a step-by-step breakdown here >> Think Like a Trainer.

Final Thoughts on Putting it All into Action

• Start TODAY. There will always be an excuse to start tomorrow, or Monday, or next week. Forget that excuse. Start crushing your goals TODAY.
• Track it. I’m all about living in the present but if you’re trying to reach a goal in the near future, you should know what the recent past has done for you.
• Hold yourself accountable, or ask someone to hold you accountable. You are not alone!

Most importantly, don’t be scared to commit. YOU are the most important person you could ever possibly make a commitment to and I’m hard-pressed to find a better commitment than to live a longer, healthier and happier life.