At various times during the year we need to do some reflecting on the time gone by and begin making goals for the future. We take stock of where we are in relation to where we were a year ago. We also look at where we want to go in the next year or years of our life and begin to make life decisions and create goals.
These decisions usually come in the form of goals both personal and professional and long-term versus short-term. You should ALWAYS have goals that you are working on in order to consistently have an understanding of why you are doing what you are doing. Just showing up and “checking it off” each day or week is not a strategy that will last very long.
When is comes to fitness, your goals should be VERY specific. Just saying that you want to “be healthier”, “be more fit” or simply “lose weight” doesn’t cut it. Why? Because you simply cannot reliably measure those types of goals. For instance, I have an ever-present goal of being in good enough shape to play golf for the rest of my life. Now I know that just broke my rule of being too general but even my goals have goals. I measure how well I am working toward my goal by the following:
- Have I been consistently working out 2-3 times per week?
- Have I been able to stay relatively injury free? (Let’s face it, we all get injured at some point in our lives)
- Am I able to maintain a consistent level of intensity throughout my workouts?
- Amount of weight lifted
- Ability to push myself when needed
As you see, although my goals do not involve body weight or measurements I can still measure SOMETHING. And that should be what you strive for as well. We have so many ways to set and track goals at APTC that we can definitely find something that will work for you. So start thinking about why you come to the gym each week and lets get started on not only your 2016 goals but your lifetime goals as well.
