Your Fitness Goal Setting Guide

Fitness goal setting helps you to lose weight and improve physical fitness. These goal setting forms have you setting SMART goals that maximize your success in achieving goals.

Whether you want to:

• lose weight
• increase your body muscle mass
• improve your fitness
• improve your overall health

...having clear and concise fitness goals makes it easier to achieve success.
Fitness goal setting can mean the difference between being healthy or not.

Setting goals for fitness is one reason why one person looks fit and healthy and the other battles their with weight and lacks self confidence.

When working with clients, fitness goal setting is one of the most rewarding goals to achieve - because you can see and feel the difference.

Being fit opens up a new horizon of opportunities for you.

Here we provide you with a step-by-step guide to achieving your fitness goals.

Fitness goal setting

They set these goals with the best of intentions, only to set the same goals the following year.

Here we provide a goal setting plan to achieve your fitness goals.

A plan is like a blueprint of success that greatly enhances your success in setting and achieving goals.

The 5 steps to your plan include:

1. Practice 'no limit' thinking to develop a clear vision
2. Write down goals and clarify your long-term fitness goals
3. Develop an action plan to achieve your long-term goals
4. Develop short-term fitness goals
5. Create a fitness goal setting plan for short-term goals

1. Clarify your vision for fitness goal setting

Imagine yourself in great physical health and fitness 3 years from now. How do you look and feel?

What would be your ideal weight?

How much exercise would you do each week?

This no limit thinking helps you to paint a vision of the overall health that you would like to have.

'No Limit' Thinking Wave a magic wand over health and fitness - allow yourself to think with no limits. What is your image of your perfect health and fitness? How would you look or feel? Practicing your 'no limit' thinking stops you asking the "Yes...but" questions that dampens your motivation and allows your true vision to emerge. These right-brained goal setting activities help you to brainstorm your ideal vision of health and fitness.

2. Write down long-term fitness goals

Your 'no limit' thinking has allowed you to dream big and create a vision of your ideal physical fitness and overall health.

What changes can you start to make to your diet and your exercise plans to move you in the direction of your ideal health and fitness?

Use this fitness goals plan to identify those actions that support your overall long-term goals.

By writing down your long-term goals and the actions and strategies that support your fitness goals you start to take the abstract out of goal setting and make it real and concrete to you.

When setting goals it is important to follow the ideas of SMART goals - make them specific, measurable, action-based, realistic, and time-bound.

By following SMART goals you greatly enhance your ability for setting and achieving goals.

For example, "I want to lose weight."

This quite a general goal, and can be made more specific such as "I want to lose 10 pounds."

The advantage of a specific goal is that it gives you something clear to aim for and is easily measurable.

Goal Setting Theory Goal setting theory states that the more specific and challenging the goals are the more likely you will remain motivated to achieve goal setting success. Easy goals are easy to forget and general goals are difficult to aim for. For example: "I want to get healthier" is a general goal. Setting a specific goal such as, "I will walk for 30 minutes, three times a week" is much more specific and gives you something to aim for.

3. Identify actions that support your fitness goals

Now that you have dreamt big and have a vision of your ideal health and fitness, and you have set concrete long-term goals to achieve your vision, it is time to develop a set of actions to achieve your fitness goals.

This set of actions is your bridge between today's dream and tomorrow's reality.

Ask yourself the following questions:

What can I do that moves me towards my long-term fitness goal?

Do I need to exercise more? If motivation is lacking can I boost my motivation (e.g. I have clients who hire a personal trainer or make an appointment with a friend for a morning walk.)

Some people like to use inspirational goal setting quotes or motivational posters.

Do you need to manage your time better? Does work and family crowd out your fitness goals?

What can you do that ensures that you make time for exercise?

What can you do to eat a more balanced diet? Rather than eat take-away can you get up 5 minutes earlier to prepare your lunch?

The answer to these questions (and I am sure you can think of many more!) forms the basis for setting your short-term fitness goals - the building blocks to long-term fitness success.

4. Write down your short-term fitness goals

Any goal setting plan requires that you break your overall goals into a set of actions.

This set of actions is systematic from the beginning to the end. By setting actions that are time-bound, you maximize your chance of achieving goal success.

These goal setting templates may clarify your short-term fitness goals.

Prioritize Your Fitness Goals Fitness goals are rewarding to achieve. Whether your goal is to attain an ideal weight, to become healthier, or just to fit into last year's jeans, it is important to prioritize your goals in terms of importance. A common goal setting error is that we spend too long chasing too many goals! This spreads your attention and reduces your focus on those goals most important to you. Prioritize your fitness goals with this goal setting activity.

5. Your fitness goal setting plan

Each short-term fitness goal has clear actions that support it.

What resources do you require to support each of your actions?

Do you need new skills, more time, and/or resources such as money?

Are there any obstacles that you may face when working on your fitness goals?

Are there ways that you can boost motivation when the going gets tough in your fitness goal setting?

Having a goal setting plan - a blueprint for how you are going to deal with these challenges - is important to your goal setting success.

Write down the resources or potential obstacles that you may face in this setting fitness goals plan.

As an example, see my short-term goal setting plan for lecturing at university.

Related goal setting articles

Goal Setting Worksheet: Identify the Life Areas Most Important for Setting Goals

Goal Setting Forms: Forms to Download for Goal Setting

Goal Setting Strategies: Reap the Benefits of Proven Strategies for Success

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