SMART goals:
I know, I know, acronyms are so 2000’s, right? But guess what? I don’t care. They are helpful for remembering things, so we are going to go with the tried and true acronym for helping you set fitness goals that are worthwhile.
Why Goals Are Important?
At TriForce CrossFit, we encourage our members to set both long-term and short-term fitness goals. The main reasons for this is motivation and perspective. It can be very easy to get lost in a non-specific goal such as “I want to lose weight” or “I want to get stronger.” But if we set SMART goals, we will stay focused on what we need to accomplish each and every day in order to achieve those goals. We are less likely to get off track from achieving our goals if we have written them out and have them holding us accountable.
Likewise, well-set goals will help us keep perspective on where we have been and where we are going. 6 months into a 12 month goal, it is great to look back and see if we have made half of the progress that we should have made. Also, it can feel defeating to only be half-way there, but if we can see all the progress that has already been made, it is much easier to keep going.
Think about driving down the road in Kansas. All you can see is what is in front of you, and what you can see in the rear-view mirror. And guess what? It all looks the same! Flat, straight road. BUT, if you have plugged in your destination into your Map, it becomes much easier to keep going when you have an ETA. You also can see where you started from, and how much of the trip you have already knocked out.
There are plenty of barriers to achieving our fitness goals, but improper goal setting should not be one.
What is SMART?
This acronym will help you set a goal that will allow you to hit it and be happy about it. Apply each of these rules to your goal, and you will have a goal worth writing down and putting on display.
S-Specific
We should never set vague goals. It leaves us to either falsely puff ourselves up because we have roughly obtained what we desired, or it can leave us frustrated because hitting our goal actually means nothing to us because it wasn’t specific.
Lets look at an example of a goal that isn’t specific that I hear ALL THE TIME.
“I want to lose weight.”
Not specific. At all.
Let’s make a couple of possible edits to make this more specific.
“I want to lose 30 pounds by the end of the year so my doctor will let me come off my medication.”
Or maybe we don’t actually care what the scale says…
“I want to drop 3 pants sizes in 6 weeks so I can wear the clothes I have hanging in my closet.”
Or maybe we don’t care about how our clothes fit…
“I want to have visible definition in my abs like I did when I met my spouse so that I can finally be confident in the bedroom again.”
Now we are working with some Specific goals.
M-Measurable
Ok, so let’s stick with the first goal we came up with in the last example.
“I want to lose 30 pounds by the end of the year so my doctor will let me come off my medication.”
We have two important measurements in this goal.
“30 lbs” is how much weight we want to lose. Now I can actually tell if I met my goal. I won’t be satisfied if I only lose 15 lbs.
“By the end of the year.” This lets us know if we obtained our goal within our desired time limits. Maybe there is a party we want to go to for New Year’s, and we want to come in looking and feeling awesome. It won’t do us any good if we lose the weight next year. It has to be accomplished within this year.
A-Attainable
Is our goal realistic?
Keeping with our example, this seems like a reasonable goal if we set it in June, and we have 30 lbs to lose, and we will devote the resources to making it happen.
If any of these things are off, we are wasting time setting a goal at all.
This is the one that frustrates people the most I think, and leads to people abandoning healthy habits.
I have people walk in every day that want to lose 30 pounds over the next 4 weeks because they read on FB that one of their friends started Keto and they we able to do it. There are so many issues with this mindset, its hard to find a place to start.
We have to think, “how long did it take me to put on 30 pounds?” The answer is always longer than 4 weeks. Then why in the world would you be able to lose all of it in 4 weeks.
In order to avoid getting upset and quitting all our progress, we must make sure that we have chosen a goal that is attainable.
R-Relevant
CrossFit is cool, because once you get started with it, a whole new world of possibilities is opened. But it also can lead to some non-relevant goals.
Often times we see the people around us doing cool things, and we say, “I want to do that!”
Awesome, and one day, maybe we will, but for now, being able to do amazing gymnastics skills is not relevant to why we started. I’m not saying that we should never change, or adjust goals, but do make sure that what we are chasing will help us achieve our bigger picture goals.
T-Trackable
Some people would make the T “timely.” Yes, being timely in our goals is important, but we already covered that with our Specificity.
We really need to choose measurements that we can track on a regular basis. So in our example, we have chosen weight.
Easy.
Get a scale.
Weigh in everyday.
If progress isn’t made everyday, that is completely fine, but just by tracking our weight on a consistent basis, we are more likely to make good choices throughout the day.
This also will allow us to make adjustments to our plan if we are not making the progress we need in order to hit our goals by our projected date. Maybe we need to add in an extra workout each week. Or maybe our food choices need to be tightned up a bit if we continue to be at a plateau on the scale.
Now What?
So there you have it. We set a really SMART goal, and I’m confident that we can make it happen. All that is needed next is a plan to help us hit our goal.
But that is a post for another day.
We help people hit their goals EVERYDAY at TriForce CrossFit. Your goal might not be the same goal that we came up with. Maybe your goal is more aesthetic. Or maybe it is more focused on health. Or maybe it is about improving athletic performance. TriForce can help you with any of these things by coming up with a SMART plan for you!
If you need help thinking through a SMART goal for you, click here to send me an email, and I would love to help you figure out a SMART goal just for you!
