So you've decided to improve an aspect of your health or fitness. Fantastic! Now what? I'm going to be honest... people suck at setting goals Nine out of ten times when I ask why someone joined the gym they will say either "I don't know" or "I want to lose weight/get fit/tone up"
The problem is - how do you "get fit"? Run, row, hike, bike, swim... How do you lose weight? Go low carb, low fat, vegan, paleo, move more, lift weights... Where do you start? How do you know if it's working? These are outcome based goals. I want this (increase strength, lose weight, improve fitness) from training/changing my lifestyle. They are a great starting point - you need to know where you're going. Once you know where you're going you need to work out how to get there but like most people, I'm guessing you probably make it up as you go. Like throwing a fist full of darts at a dartboard and hoping for a bullseye.
For such a goal, it can involve a few or even dozens of small habit changes all at once. It can work, but it fails far more often than it succeeds. Habit change is not always easy, we are certainly creatures of habit so the simpler we can make it, the more successful we will be. If we focus on what we can do, instead of what we want, we can take action and start moving in the right direction. This is behaviour based goal setting. What is one behaviour that I can implement into my lifestyle right now that will help me move forward? It should be something you have little to no resistance to, can do often and should be tracked and measured. You want to get fitter, you keep trying to go out for a run, but you hate running. Good luck making that a consistent habit! Possible but unlikely. More likely is joining your friends for that bike ride they go on a few times a week or swimming some laps every day as you've always enjoyed swimming. And frequency is important too. A once a week or more habit can quickly get forgotten amongst our modern busyness until you've only done it 3 times in the last 10 weeks. That doesn't make for a big change. It needs to be multiple times per week if not every day. So let's take a look at some common goals and some behaviour based goals you could take up right now to get you there... I want to get fitter * I will jog/bike/swim for 10 minutes, 3 x per week * I will get my heart rate above 120 every day * I will always take the stairs over the elevator * I will ride to work * I will take a fitness class every day before/after work I want to get stronger * I will do 10 squats every time I go to the toilet * I will do one pull up every time I walk past a pull up bar/monkey bars * I will do 20 push ups, sit ups and rows every day * I will go to the gym every day before/after work for at least 20 minutes * I will plank during the ads of my favourite show I want to lose weight * I will track my daily food intake * I will eat 5 different vegetables per day * I will drink 2L water per day * I will eat no more than 150g carbs per day * I will get 10,000 steps per day * I will train for at least 30 mins every day Obviously you can do this with any goal, make the behaviour applicable to your current situation and make sure you track your progress! The tracking is the most important part. Otherwise you'll have no idea if you're actually improving. If you don't see improvement, you will have to tweak or change your behaviour goal.
Lastly, don't get married to any one behaviour. Always look at whether it's working now, even if it may have always worked in the past your body will eventually adapt and you'll stop improving.
You want the result above all else, so find the behaviour that gets you there and when it stops working move on to the next behaviour. What is your overall goal? Can you come up with your own behaviour based goal?
