Here at Newstrength we see 100’s of people just like you. Wanting to be on that journey, where they’re turning their goals into a reality. After years of helping people do this, we noticed the preparation prior to chasing down your health and fitness goals can play a significant role in how successful your journey ends up being. If you’re one to keep “falling off of the wagon” only to reset your goals and hitch a ride to jump on again, this one’s for you.
Lets think we are all about to set off on a voyage at sea! Game Of Thrones fans let your imagination go nuts!
You can be certain there will be storms, high seas and plenty of challenging times, possibly a dragon or two, but if you have invested the time into preparing your vessel and planning your journey, those obstacles become much easier and your direction remains clear. Making the trip smoother, faster and much easier! Minus the dragons of course!
Here at Newstrength we love seeing people succeed, so much we actually built our entire business around it!
We love making an impact and we love providing sound advice, so you can only imagine how excited we are about this Blog!
Today we’re going to keep it simple and talk about… yep… those two words.
Goal-Setting.
We’ve all been there and we all know how effective it can be… wait! I mean how effective it SHOULD be!
Most of us find ourselves with high spirits and concrete plans. Only to later be chasing down that god awful wagon again for a chance to jump back on. With another genius strategy up our sleeve. No I’m not going to talk to you today about what goals you should be setting or about how using a SMRT goal setting plan is the answer to your prayers. (Anyone catch the simpsons reference?)
No, no, no. Today I’m going to make it easy! Well easier than before at least. I’m going to offer you one easy trick to drastically improve your chance of achieving your goals!
For now Let’s start with Ellie.
This is Elli
Ellie is super excited for her new health and fitness journey. She is ready and nothings going to hold her back from reaching her goals!
Ellie’s going to write down her goals because she has heard that it’s VERY important and what all the successful people do.
Ellie wants to…
- Lose weight
- Tone up
- Be more confident in her body
First off, well done to Ellie! Writing down your goals is great. It makes them very real. Though a lot of us have wrote down goals before and the only cardio we found ourselves doing was chasing down that DAMN wagon again!
First problem with Ellie’s goals are that they’re subjective. Never set a subjective goal. Their achievement is too easily influenced.
Unfortunately 2 months past and Ellie found herself feeling displeased, disheartened and no closer to her goals. As she was looking for a new strategy, Ellie found an online “6 week eating challenge” No carbs, no fat and no “bad” calories for 6 weeks! Ellie thought “Why not, this could be it!” “This times going to be different” she states.
Its week 2 and Ellie is feeling GREAT! She has lost 1kg and she’s been preparing her meals every day @5am
…
BUT THEN
This was Ellie 2.5 weeks in. She was later found on a 3 day chocolate and pizza binge. Safe to say she fell off the wagon and rolled away, with a slice of pizza in one hand and a donut in the other.
3 months 17 pizzas and 32 donuts later, Ellie was searching the internet and stumbled across a very helpful blog from a gym called Newstrength.
Newstrength typed tirelessly about a girl making all the common mistakes they see and how they had one simple trick the help people like her out!
“When it comes to setting goals, training and living a healthy lifestyle I’m sure you’ve heard about this
- Your Mindset
You have most likely heard this term get thrown around quite loosely. For those who have had some exposure I’m sure it goes a little something like this –
- Mindset = positive and progressive!
Whilst this sounds great, holds value and sounds like it’s the key, I can tell you now, it’s not working for the majority of us. 2 of every 3 adults in australia are NOT reaching their goals!
These are the end results of a process. If I asked you to build a house and I just showed you a photo of the outside i’m sure you would think I’m crazy and you’d claim it’s an impossible task. It’s just like me asking you to be positive, set goals, eat healthy and train right!
Yeah, from the outside in it looks fabulous.Too bad there’s no plan or system, Just a request. So setting goals based on requests continues to prove ineffective.
This made so much sense to Ellie!
She decided to no longer make request based goals! But what now?
That one simple trick that helped Ellie out
At Newstrength we talk about the process. We like to make plans that make sense. So you can tackle each step one by one. We teach our clients to look at their personal goals as actionable behaviours. This gives them control over their goals and provides a nice recurring sense of achievement.
Ellie now had her latest plan!
Before Ellie
“I want to lose weight.”
Now Ellie
“I will exercise 3 times a week for the next 12 weeks.”
See the difference?
One is a hopeful outcome based on what you think should happen. Just another request.
The “Now Ellie goal” is something that you have total control of. By focusing on the things you have control of you’ll be a lot happier during the process and more likely to find success.
Now that you’re setting your goals as actionable behaviours instead of requests, you’re on the right track and we are confident this one piece of advice will get you headed in the right direction. Though before you leave we wanted to leave you with this.
Ditching The Wagon Once and For All
People talk of journeys that prioritise their health and fitness, though they act as if the journey has ended as soon as a mere speed bump of red wine and cheese arises. So much talk about that WAGON! Let’s hop off of this wagon once and for all. We never really liked it anyway, right?
Your journey can be at your pace and you can pick the mode of transport. Stop thinking there’s rules here.
If we look at the definition of the term ‘journey’ it looks like this – an act of travelling from one place to another.
Just because your health and fitness journey hasn’t been consistent, perfect, or even if it’s barely been existent of late. It doesn’t mean that this too isn’t part of the journey itself. Life happens, and will continue to happen. It doesn’t mean that the destination has vanished. At Newstrength we’ve found sometimes it just takes another route.
Transformation is a process, and as life happens there are tons of ups and downs. It’s a journey of discovery.
P.S This is Ellie 6 months after reading Newstrength’s Blog 