Coach Roc Hardwood Tells You...

SMART Goals

You may be familiar with the concept of SMART goals. SMART is an acronym used in the fitness world and beyond to consolidate aims and objectives. For an increased chance of success, your goals should be:

Specific

Measurable

Achievable

Realistic

Time-framed.

Clearly, setting SMART goals helps explore your objectives and how they will be realized in more detail. The questions that you will ask yourself surrounding your own fitness objectives will bring you to a greater understanding of what needs to be done and the action you need to take to guarantee progress. This in turn increases your chances of success. Take a minute now to make one of your fitness priorities a SMART goal.

So now you have a much clearer idea of where you are heading with your fitness. But how can you absolutely guarantee that you reach your objectives and achieve exactly what you are aiming for?

The following process takes slightly longer than setting SMART goals but it is well worth the investment of time as your results will be dramatic. As with many things in life, the devil is in the detail and the more detail you can create around what it is you want to achieve and why, the more likely you will be to succeed.

First, state your goal as a positive, present tense and active voice and make it something exciting to aim for:

What does that "tense and voice" mean? Simple, for all you non-grammar majors out there.

Present tense = "I am doing it now."

Most people write goals in the future tense: "I will do it." Know what... if you say "I'll do it" that is the same as saying "One of these days, I'll get around to doing it, if I don't find some easy excuse not to." So you have to stick to the present, not the future: I'm doing it NOW.

Same with active voice ("I am doing it") vs. passive voice: ("It will be done.") Now is the time to take responsibility for your actions. Your fitness won't be done for you. You have to remove butt from chair and....

Knowing that you want to lose weight is fine, but understanding what your target weight will be and what this will mean for your life, what opportunities this will offer you, what outfits this will allow you to wear and how you will feel when you have achieved the result, is even more motivating.

Next you must establish where you are now in relation to your goal. You must clearly understand the gap between your current situation and your desired situation, in order that you can set a truly realistic time frame for the achievement. In other words:

I am at Point A and I need to set a plan to get me to point B.

Now ask yourself, 'what will I see, hear and feel when I reach my goal?' Giving yourself the opportunity to flesh out a picture of what reaching this goal will enable you to do, feel, see and hear allows you to imagine living as if you have already succeeded. Your brain begins working on new and positive thought patterns, you can sense success in your head and in you body. These positive thought patterns are a great asset in the quest to begin making the dream come true.

Dreaming alone won't make it come true. You still have to add the sweat.

Then ask yourself, 'how will I know when I have achieved my goal?' This is a crucial question to ask so that you are completely clear on when you will reach your current objectives. Call this your Deliverable(s).

This allows you to feel the sense of achievement and success that you deserve. It is fine to reset some new goals at this point, but ensure that you enjoy the moment of victory before moving on. If you do not establish how you will know when you have achieved your goal well in advance, the tendency is to keep moving the goalposts. This may lead to you feeling like you never succeed, despite the fact that you may have hit your initial targets and gone beyond them ages ago.

Don't forget, then, to add some rewards along the way. When you make a particularly tough goal, plan out the reward you get at that point. Just make sure your rewards aren't counterproductive such as "when I lose another 5 pounds, I can have the Gut Buster Sundae with extra chocolate sauce." That's not a good reward for a weight loss goal. Plan something non-food related: I only get new electronic gadgets (like my new ipod shuffle!) by making a goal in the gym.

The next question to ask yourself is, 'what will reaching this goal get for me?' It is important that you recognize what achieving a goal will get for you, and also what it won't get for you, at an early stage, to avoid disappointment later.

People sometimes make giant mental leaps to associate losing weight with being completely happy, enjoying life at all times and sometimes even finding a new partner. If all this does not happen they may become frustrated. The goal was too big and "single step." They didn't have the intermediate steps to get to that one point, so frustration sets in, and the goal dies on the vine.

Make sure that you know that hitting your target fitness level or weight may get you many things, but not necessarily a new lover! Focus on what it will definitely get you, not what it might lead to.

Confirm that the goal is an idea created by you and for you. Self-generated goals are almost always achieved more effectively than a goal that someone else has suggested. Individuals can shed half their body weight if they decide that they need to make some drastic changes. Others may fail to shift a pound if it is someone else who has 'suggested' they need to slim down a bit and not their own choice to do so. Which do you want? Which do you need?

Find out what resources you will need to reach your goal. Whether it be a gym membership, a pair of trainers, some time to yourself, family support, some dumbbells, or even time to read a book, you must be clear on precisely what you need to put in place to ensure success, and when you will need these resources. The last thing you want is to be tripped up half way to your goal by something simple that you could have anticipated well ahead of time. Think: physical limitations, your age, your current medical status, your interests (don't set a goal around doing something that totally bores you in the gym!) Think Long-Tern, not just today. Remember:

There's no "Magic Pill" to instant rewards.

Along the same lines, you must establish if there is any cost to anyone else of you achieving your goal. If a by-product of you embarking on a fitness program is that you spend more time out of the house away from your partner, you must consider how this will affect him. If you choose your specific weight loss program, there might be a completely different kind of food in stock in the house which may have implications for your family. You need to be fully aware of these issues and able to anticipate a way around them before causing chaos at home.

Finally ask, is your goal truly exciting, compelling and desirable to you? If it is not then perhaps you need to add more detail to some of the questions above. Only when the goal appears really exciting and totally enthralling can you guarantee success.

By creating SMART goals you can drastically increase your chances of success. Then, by checking your ideas with the more detailed questions, you will have fully explored your aims and objectives and how they fit into your life.
This allows you to feel true motivation to succeed. You now have the best possible chance of making your fitness dreams and desires a reality.

Now get down and give me fifty!

Now get down on the floor and give me 50.