Setting Goals

We operate in an industry of anecdotal information. We see clients every day that want to feel better, look better, and reduce pain. 

And the fact is that you should expect something in return for your investment, so what specific measurables can we assign to your goals? No matter what you want to achieve, it is important to have a measurable target to work towards because:

“What get’s measured, gets managed”

Okay great, so you might be thinking I want to reduce body fat.

How much fat do you want to lose? One kilogram? Five kilograms? Twenty kilograms?

When do you want to lose that fat? Before you turn 50? In time for a special event? Tomorrow?

What are you willing to do to reach that level of fat loss? Is it enough to reach the goal?

You see, there’s a lot more to setting a fat loss goal than simply saying you want to lose fat.
If you want to set a real goal, you have to get SMART, and by SMART, we mean specifically that the goal needs to be:

• • Specific

• • Measurable

• • Attainable

• • Relevant &

• • Timely

If you’ve spent any time working for a big company, you’ve probably heard of SMART goals before.
There’s a good reason for this – they work! By making your goals SMART, you ensure everyone’s on the same page and fully across what needs to be done to get there.

So, what is a SMART goal, specifically?SMART goals must be… specific. The more specific, the better. Continuing from our fat loss example, you have to get specific with questions like:

• • How much weight?

• • Does it matter if it is all fat or a combination of fat and lean tissue?

• • Is it important to the client where the weight comes off?

• • Does it need to be off the hips and thighs, or can it come from anywhere?

• • Why does the weight need to come off?

• • If the goal is to reach a certain size or shape, is weight loss really the goal?

• • What if the goal is actually to reduce waist circumference?

People tend to get caught up in meaningless metrics when they define their goals, so getting specific can really help focus on what is important. If we can figure out what you’re after, and we mean REALLY after, then you can tap into an emotional reservoir of energy that will help motivate and propel you through the program.

• • Be Specific
    Being specific isn’t just about honing in on what you actually want. It also supports the rest of our goal-setting journey. The next thing we need to make SMART goals is to ensure what we want to achieve is measurable.

• • Measure Progress
    Obviously, if you don’t know what you’re measuring, i.e., the specific objective, then you can’t measure it. But it goes further than that. Any meaningful goal is going to take some time to achieve. It will take weeks, months or even years to get there, and the human brain simply isn’t tuned to manage over long timelines like that.

Our brains want immediate satisfaction, so we need to ensure we’re programming in opportunities to get that satisfaction as we go on our way toward achieving our goals. Making our goals measurable means we can periodically check our progress against the endpoint. Hitting specific milestones along the way becomes mini victories in and of themselves and helps motivate you toward the end objective.

People don’t achieve their goals by luck, it takes hard work and collaboration. If the Specific goal was based on having a smaller waist rather than being at a particular weight then we need to take that into account and have regular waist and hip measurements as part of their initial and follow-up assessments.

• • Be Realistic
    The next element of a SMART goal is that it must be Attainable. This one should be straightforward. There’s nothing smart about setting a goal that’s not attainable. This is a recipe for disappointment and disaster.

This is another important reason why it’s important to understand specifically what you want to achieve. You may say that you want to lose 5kg of fat but in the back of your mind, you want to lose that fat from a very specific place, something that may not be a realistic goal.

Likewise, if getting down to a 32’ waist in 12 weeks means losing 30kg of body fat, you may want to revise the measurement or the timeline in order to make the target something that can actually be attained. This is definitely not impossible, but you will need to understand the workload involved, perhaps it is a 24-week process that requires ample time to diet and reverse diet or several dieting cycles.

• • Make it Count
    Next, a SMART goal is Relevant. That is to say, it must matter to the goal setter. Setting a goal to lose 10kg when 5 is all you really care about means you’re far less likely to do what it takes to reach the 10kg in the first instance.

Making sure the goal is relevant is an easy way to get emotional buy-in on the steps it will take to achieve the goal. This comes back to your values. If you truly value health, fitness & aesthetics they will be more likely to achieve it as it is relevant and important to them. If your number one value is socializing and partying, then we may experience an uphill battle to shift the weight.

• • Hit the Goal in Time!
    Finally, SMART goals must be timely. Failing to put time bounds on a goal is like not having a goal at all. After all, if there’s no particular time when the goal must be achieved, then we have plenty of time to undo any mistakes we make today. It’s a lot easier to say yes to that double cheeseburger when you feel like you have unlimited time to get back on track.

Keeping things time-bound also helps with other aspects of goal setting.

For example, setting a twelve-week goal forces the coach and client to think about what’s really attainable in that period of time. We’re not talking about reaching our life-long goal in just a few months here. We’re talking about taking specific, measurable, attainable, and relevant steps toward that life-long goal, twelve weeks at a time. See what we did there?

At SOF, our weight loss guides are governed by the literature to ensure our members reduce fat at a safe and sustainable rate. We aim for:

0.5-1kg weight loss per week or 0.6-0.9% body fat drop per week
(7.2-10.8% over 12 weeks).

 

Additional Resources

For more information about providing valuable resources for setting and achieving health and fitness goals:

1. HealthDirect – Healthy Weight Blog

   • Healthy Weight Blog

2. Nutrition Australia Blog – Nutrition and Healthy Eating

   • Nutrition and Healthy Eating

3. Better Health Channel Blog – Healthy Living

   • Healthy Living

4. Heart Foundation Blog – Health Advice and Tips

   • Health Advice and Tips

5. Exercise & Sports Science Australia (ESSA) Blog – Exercise and Wellness

   • Exercise and Wellnes