Any time I start working with a new personal training client, the first thing we discuss is goals. What are you here for? What do you want to achieve? What do you want to get from coaching?
This is an obvious starter question. It’s surprising though how often the answers to this are vague, uncertain and loosely defined. The coaching usually starts right here; helping you to clarify your goals into something that excites you and something we can really work with.
So this is a guide to a few key ideas from that process
Focus On One Thing (And One Thing Only)
The person who chases two rabbits, catches neither – Chinese Proverb
If you’re reading this, chances are that whatever your goal might be specifically, the goal is generally a physical one. This means causing changes to the composition or capabilities of your body that are significant enough to be noticeable to you and the people around you.
This isn’t a minor task, despite what less ethical coaches and marketers might tell you. Your body’s main concern isn’t how much you can deadlift or how you look at the beach on your next holiday. Your body’s primary concern is keeping you alive, and the main way it does this is by maintaining homeostasis (essentially a biological way of saying “keeping things the same”).
Our body only changes if there is a clear signal or demand. his usually takes the form of weight training, and the more of it you do
A very common one for example is wanting to lose fat and gain muscle simultaneously. This can be done, but nowhere near as well as if you do it one at a time. So, a useful question to ask yourself is if.
If you lost a lot of body fat in the next 10 weeks but didn’t gain muscle, would you be happier than the other way around?
Aside: Most people feel a fat loss goal is the best and easiest place to start
Deadlines & Time Frames
The main reason most people fail to achieve goals is not that the goals are too ambitious. Rather, it’s that their goals are far too vague. We tend to use general terms for our goals, especially physical ones: Lose weight, get stronger, feel fitter, look better, get toned etc. These are some of the most common goals but actually mean very little aside from whatever vague image it connotes in our head.
We will never achieve goals without a specific plan. And to create and execute that plan, we need to know exactly what we’re shooting for
- How much weight?
- How Much Stronger? How do we measure that?
To clarify this with clients, I usually ask this question.
Say in three months we achieved everything you wanted. What would we need to see to know that we’ve succeeded?
It’s especially useful if you can make this a number, or something similarly specific and measurable.
here are some before and afters for the goals above:
- Lose Weight – lose 5kg in 10 weeks
- Get Stronger – Add 10kg to my bench press in 12 weeks
- Feel Fitter – Lower my 1km run time by 30 seconds in 6 weeks
- Get toned – Lower my body fat percentage by 5% in 8 weeks while maintaining muscle mass
Small Chunking Goals
One of the best books I’ve ever read about goal setting is The 12 Week Year. The overall idea is this.
- Set 12-week goals rather than annual ones – this timeframe lends itself much better to specific goals with a deadline. If you have an annual goal you can subdivide it into 4 smaller ones
- You further subdivide from there, splitting the goal into milestones you aim to hit every 3-4 weeks
- You further subdivide from there into week-by-week milestones, reviewing each week to make sure you’re on track
This is a simple idea but has a radical effect on your ability to hit your goals. An annual goal can feel impossible – but a 12-week goal feels achievable and can be easily measured. And the small chunking into milestones makes it easy to make sure you’re on the right track throughout.
Again using an example above: Old Goal: Lose some weight and gain some muscle.
This is vague, involving 2 contradictory goals with no timeframe, no way to measure and no system for making sure we’re on track
New Goal: Lose 5kg in the next 10 Weeks
- Week 4 Milestone – weight down by 2kg on average
- Week 7 Milestone – weight down by 3.5kg on average
- Weekly checks – weigh down by 0.5kg on average This gives us a single solid, measurable goal, with a solid timeframe, split into milestones so that we can review each week, make sure we’re on track, and adjust if we aren’t
Action Points
So in summary, if you want to apply this to yourself, start with the following steps
- Pick one goal and one goal only
- If you’re unsure which, ask yourself if you can do more of one but less of the other (eg. more muscle with a little more fat, less fat with a little less muscle), which option would make you happiest?
- If still unsure, just pick one. Action is always better than perfection. After you’ve achieved one, you can move on to the next
- Set a deadline and a way to assess & measure
- Pick a reasonable timeframe (preferably 8-12 weeks) and set a measurable goal from there
- If you aren’t sure what would be a reasonable measurement & deadline for your goal feel free to ask in the comments below
- Create Milestones
- Take your measurement and deadline above, and subdivide it week by week
- Set 2 bigger milestones 1/3 and 2/3 through the process (eg. for a 12-week overall goal, set milestones at 4 weeks and 8 weeks
- Set aside time at the end of each week to check, assess and adjust if needed.
If you do all the above, you should have a pretty solid goal set up for the next few months. The next step is the process of actually achieving it. Look out for our series of “Quick Start” articles on how to make a plan for some of the most common goals listed above.