Image Credit: neloqua
With the new year a few weeks behind us, now is a great time to look at our New Year’s resolutions and evaluate how we will achieve them. It’s sad, but many people set goals that they will never achieve.
But being lazy is not the only (more…)
Continue reading about 5 Essential Tips for Effective Goal Setting, Part 1
This is the time of year that many people already start to give up on their New Year’s Resolutions. In response, I’ve written this post:
Not getting to your destination? Having trouble achieving your goals? You may have a problem that you haven’t considered.
When you are doing everything you (more…)
Continue reading about How to Always Achieve Your Goals, 100% of the Time
[Editor's note - a different version of this post came out two years ago from Jason, but I (Darrin) have years of experience managing teams of professionals and so I've added my experience with how people can achieve their goals. So this is a pretty major rework...]
This is the time of year that many people already start to give up on their New Year’s Resolutions. Especially fitness goals. Don’t be one of those people!
Not getting to your destination? Having trouble achieving your goals? You may have a problem that you haven’t considered – how you set them in the first place.
When you are doing everything you possibly can to achieve your goals, but just can’t quite seem to reach them, the problem might be that you are setting the wrong type of goal. Here’s a real-world example that you might see in business:
My goal is to increase company sales this year.
What’s wrong with this goal?
- “This Year” is too long a timeframe to measure progress. You can easily lie to yourself each month you fail to see higher sales, by saying “I’ll make up for it next month”.
- You don’t directly control company sales. Most likely, you aren’t in a position to control company-wide sales. Even a director of sales doesn’t technically “control” sales because customers must buy something for sales to increase, and you can’t control the customers. You can only take actions that will influence their decision to purchase.
- Not measurable. How will you measure your success here? “Increase” could mean just $1 more revenue when you really meant much more.
You may have heard of SMART goals: specific, measureable, actionable, realistic, and timebound. Good advice in theory but in practice, the average person gets so confused by these 5 criteria that their goals become convoluted and dysfunctional.
MT Goals
So forget the “S”, “A”, and “R” for now and just focus on the “M” and “T” – make sure your goals are Measureable and Timebound (you do this right, and the S, A, and R will come along for the ride). And since you are the only person that you have complete, direct control over, you are the only person that your goals should ever focus on. You will only set yourself up for disappointment if you create a goal that you can try your hardest to achieve and still fail at.
[I've known this for many years, after struggling with teams and individuals going into contortions to set up goals. All that really matters is that they are measurable and timebound. But the first time I heard the phrase "MT" goals was from the guys at http://www.manager-tools.com/ . For further advice on MT goals, see Better Smart Goals.
Your Workout Goals – Outcome vs. Process
You don’t have direct control over your body composition either. If you did, you would just add 10 pounds of muscle or lose fat whenever you want.
Instead, you have to take the specific actions that influence your body to look the way you want. You don’t just lose fat… you increase your metabolism, run hard, and eat clean food, and then your body may or may not lose 10 pounds of fat.
So setting a goal to lose 10 pounds of fat is an outcome-based goal. Outcome-based goals are fine and usually the place people start. And they are an important part of goal setting. But they don’t tell you what to do – what action to take. If you don’t know what the best mix of diet and exercise is most likely to lose 10 pounds, no amount of goal setting will make it happen. You need to have some more experience before you can set outcome-based goals.
The solution to these problems is (more…)
Continue reading about Goal Achievement For Lazy People – Start With The Right Goals
Admitting Defeat
You know, I recently wrote an article over at The Goal Triangle about how you have to fail in order to succeed. Well, here’s a case in point: the new email format. I tried to make things easier for you and for myself, and improve the look of the emails you get, but I “failed”. It was harder for me to manage, and the html codes ended up triggering more spam filters (meaning many of you never got some really good articles – check your spam folders over the past few weeks to make sure). So, I’m back to the old format.
Poll Results
You may have noticed the poll taking place on the right side of worldfitnessnetwork. The previous poll asked what your top fitness goals were. After hundreds of votes, the top 2 were: #1: build muscle and #2 shed fat. Probably not surprising given the content I write about! Be sure to take the current poll (which will be changed to a new poll in February).
The Fight For Your Fitness Wallet
If you are signed up for other fitness sites, you may have noticed a huge increase in sales hype and email volume.
I’m here to give you the straight story about why they are doing this, and how you should respond.
Since most of those guys are sending me information about how I should promote their products, I see their strategy. Here’s what’s going on… (more…)
Remember when we asked you to Take Your Worst Picture Ever? Well it’s time to take it out. If you haven’t taken it yet, or are new to World Fitness Network, we’ve got reminders at the end of this post…
What Do You See?
That old picture of yourself – is that what you still look like? Have you made any progress? Have you made enough progress? I’m not here to lecture you – I’m here to help you lecture yourself.
If you think you’ve made good progress, skip to the Take a New Picture section and then compare.
If you haven’t made progress, do these things right now:
- write down every excuse you can come up with; don’t hold back!
- now rank those excuses by their “power”; the stronger their power over you, the closer to the top of the list they go
- for each of your top 5 excuses (more if you have the gumption), write down at least one action you are going to take to eliminate it as an excuse moving forward
- take your top 5 excuses and share them with someone who cares about you; ask them for their advice on how they think you can eliminate those; don’t share the previous step with them – you want original ideas
- take the combined list of approximately 10 ideas to combat your 5 major excuses, and tape the list to your bathroom mirror
- every day (especially on your workout days) recite that list out loud; if you get embarrassed reading it out loud, good! you’ve got to break through some barriers if you want to eliminate those excuses
- now act!
And time to take a new picture:
Haven’t Taken Your Picture Yet? Or Need To Take A New Picture?
Did you fail your self-evaluation? Or are you just now planning to get in shape, but haven’t quite started yet?
Or even if you’ve made progress, you now need a new benchmark – a new picture.
Go into your room and take all your clothes off. That’s right, strip down to nothing but your briefs, your Spiderman Underoos, your boxers, your lingerie, whatever you are wearing underneath. (more…)
Join the forum discussion on this article, or comment below.Continue reading about It’s Time to Look At Your Worst Picture Ever, And Take A New One
- Don’t delay getting in the best shape of your life…
Are you waiting until January to get serious about fitness?
I’m already starting to hear a phrase I absolutely hate: “After the holidays I will… [fill in the blank]“
For some it’s “After the holidays I’ll get serious about eating right (more…)
Earlier this year I was really focused on gaining strength. I set specific goals around 3 particular lifts and set a deadline. To accomplish them, I had to adjust my training plan and mental rehearsal framework. I had to read about elite deadlifters. I had to watch videos of heavy (more…)
