
If you want to have any hope of having a successful exercise program or physical activity that you do routinely, you have to start with setting your goals.

What do you want to accomplish? Why do you want to accomplish that? How will you get there?

If you’re exercising just because you were told to (by a friend, spouse, doctor, the internet, etc.) or because you made it your New Year’s Resolution, chances are you’ll be frustrated and burned out very quickly. You don’t have the personal motivation it takes to make change.

Or even if you know the reason you started exercising, such as wanting to lose weight, you can still lose your way. You may not have an answer to why you want to lose weight so your goal becomes empty. You may lose sight of your goal and fail to use it as motivation, or you set unrealistic expectations for yourself and can’t understand why change isn’t happening as fast as you thought. Then you decide it’s not worth it, you’ll never reach your goals, and you might as well give up.

Sound familiar?

Setting goals is something I incorporate into every exercise program that I write. When I work with someone I ask questions to become very clear about what they want and why they want it.

For example, often the people I work with are in pain and obviously want to get out of pain. But as I continue to talk to them they make it clear that their drive behind wanting to get out of pain is to be able to play with their kids, continue working at their job, get back to their favorite sport, feel safe going through their day to day activities, avoid surgery, or ensure they’ll stay mobile and self-sufficient into old age.

> If you have a goal, write it down. If you do not write it down, you do not have a goal - you have a wish.
>
> <cite>Steve Maraboli</cite>

Once you know the driving force behind your initial motivation, it becomes much easier to get through the moments that make you want to quit. You simply remind yourself why you want this change and think how different life will be if you can accomplish it. The work isn’t easy, but it’s worth it.

Even if your reason for wanting to work out is “superficial” and the reason you want to lose weight, build muscle, and sculpt your body is simply to feel more attractive, go for it. Don’t judge your drive, use it to your advantage. There is no fault to using superficial reasons to better yourself. (As long as it doesn’t hurt others of course!) But remember what is driving your goal is wanting to feel more confident about how you look, not counting how many pounds you’ve lost.

The important part is to sit down, explore why you want what you want, and hold on to that. Everything you do in your exercise program should be to further you towards that goal.

## Realistic Goals

Now, a caveat to setting goals is to make sure that your goals are attainable. Respect who you are, where you are at, and the limitations of reality.

If one’s goal is to be a millionaire next year while they are currently working at McDonalds and living at home, this is likely not going to happen. It’s not impossible, but they shouldn’t constrain their goal to such a short timeline. More often than not they will fail, be consumed by their failure, and entirely give up on their dream.

Instead, this person could redefine their goal to be more realistic, such as making an extra $500 a month within the year. This is attainable and is still headed in the right direction. With a smaller goal like this, they would stay proactive and motivated. Also, with this steady growth, it is not inconceivable that one day after a continuous hard work this person could end up owning a McDonalds franchise and become a millionaire.

It is important to differentiate between your long term goals and your short term goals.

Look at your long term goals and find a way to break it down into attainable chunks. You want to be able to run a 6 minute mile? Well, let’s get it down to 8 first. You want to be out of pain? Let’s reduce it by half first. You want to lose 50 pounds? Let’s start with 10.

Instead of focusing entirely on the big goal, setting milestones for every 1-3 month gives you something easy to track and see progress in. This way you do not lose sight of the long term goal or feel that you are buried under all that you haven’t achieved. You’ll feel that you are constantly improving and and being awarded by accomplishing something, giving you the motivation to continue. Who knows if you’d ever reach your ultimate goal, but you are guaranteed to continue growing.

What’s better, to do nothing because you feel that you’ll never succeed, or to fail but grow because you tried?

Keep this in mind as you are setting your goals for what you want to get out of exercising.

## Devotion to Action

What I mean by devotion to action is to be devoted the work you put in, not the results you get out. To place your focus on your labors, not only the fruits of your labor.

It is easy to set goals and think of hundreds of things you need to get done before working towards that goal. But because you have that goal sitting resting in the back of your mind you’ll trick yourself into thinking it’s okay, you’ll get to it, you haven’t forgotten about your goal you’re just busy and once you get all this other stuff done your goal will sort of just fall into your lap.

Except it doesn’t work this way. You’ll never be able to run a marathon if you don’t take the first step. Don’t fall into the busy trap. Show up every day to put in the effort, and really show up.

You need to bring your awareness to the present moment, forget about that email you need to respond to, forget about how hard it is, forget about how you want to be faster and stronger, and just do it. Focus on how your body feels right now and have fun.

When I am completely focused on doing an exercise, I feel that I am much more aware of my form, my weaknesses, my strengths, and I have more energy to work with. I perform better all around because of it, I am safer, stronger, and more in tune with what I should and shouldn’t be doing. I even feel a momentary release of all the little stresses in my life because suddenly they don’t matter. It is a therapeutic release for me that has become an important part of my daily routine.

Working out is also something that I enjoy doing. I don’t turn it into a duty that I have to do, I don’t have a no pain no gain mentality, I simply have fun doing it. I love to see myself improve my form, or go up in weight on any lift. Or for when I go to my karate and yoga classes, I’m not there thinking I need to do those things to be healthier, I am there because it feels good to improve my technique, gain a new skill, and be there with people that have a passion for the same thing. I am there to play!

Don’t get me wrong, I think there is a balance to be struck here. Devotion to action isn’t completely about being in the moment, having fun, and not worrying about goals.

It is a beautiful concept to be able to completely remove your expectations from your actions, to be totally in tune with intuition, and remain in bliss no matter the results. But for most people, it is an unattainable reality. Most of us are simply too indoctrinated in a culture of getting returns on our investments to be satisfied with not looking for results.

Also, there must be a reason for our compulsive need to anticipate and plan for the future. Indeed, it can be a very useful tool if used correctly and it is essential for direction.

The trap is to get completely trapped in looking for results and never fully being aware of what we are doing now. To turn everything into tedious work that you have to do for a purpose. While setting goals is necessary, focusing only on goals goes against their purpose.

I think this is a big reason that so many people struggle to exercise regularly. They are so focused on getting something out of exercise, turning it into work that they “have” to do, that they forget that the exercise itself should be an enjoyable activity. It is a time to let out pent up emotions, let go of being busy, connect to a community of like-minded people, and to feel accomplished achieving some physical feat.

So, remain devoted to action. Show up to put in the effort every day, and really show up. Be there in that moment, and have fun. Practice will make it easier, and focusing on your body is one of the easiest ways to root yourself in the present.

## Wrapping It All Up

Just to be clear, the principles I am talking about here do not only apply to a traditional gym setting. Although this is primarily where I exercise, the idea of setting goals to continue improving your fitness can be applied to any sport or activity.

Yoga, rock-climbing, hiking, running, kayaking, swimming, martial arts, soccer, football, you name it. All of these are physically demanding, will make you stronger, and can be improved in.

So to recap what I have said the best way to ensure you will stick to improving fitness is:

1. Set your goals.
2. Determine why that is your goal.
3. Break down your long term goal into smaller pieces.
4. Be in the moment, be devoted, have fun.
5. Get started!

If you are just trying to get started, or have failed many times before I am not promising that this will be easy. But this is pretty good first step. Also, keep an eye our for my next post, it might surprise you to learn that many people should not be working out.

If you are already devoted to fitness, I hope this rang true for you and gave you some inspiration to keep doing what you do.

Determining our goals is a great way to understand ourselves better and to keep ourselves motivated. If you feel that you want help with this process, and want clear cut, effective, and safe methods to improve your physical health don’t hesitate to call out office and ask about our Corrective Exercise. Don’t be fooled by the name, our methods are for anyone at any level looking to take their fitness to the next step.


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The First Step to Any Exercise Routine: Determine Your Goals

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