Are You Creating SMART Goals for Yourself?
It’s one thing to aimlessly workout and see some results, however it’s another to be actively setting goals for yourself and making sure you stay on track in order to complete them.
What’s the point of setting goals?
Well for one thing, they hold you accountable. There’s something about writing down an achievement you want to work towards. When you write that goal down, you’re excited and almost can’t wait to get started. Now we all know that feeling doesn’t last too long, but that’s why we write it down. Every time we look at them we’re reminded of that feeling and if we aren’t on track to completing them, we feel this guilt in our stomach. If you don’t have goals or just think of ones in your head without jotting them down you’ll either forget them or be way less likely to take action to work towards them. So start writing them down!
How do you set goals for yourself?
When I’m setting goals for myself, I like to use the SMART method. SMART stands for
- Specific: Well defined, clear, and unambiguous
- Measurable: With specific criteria that measure your progress toward the accomplishment of the goal
- Achievable: Attainable and not impossible to achieve
- Realistic: Within reach, realistic, and relevant to your life purpose
- Timely: With a clearly defined timeline, including a starting date and a target date. The purpose is to create urgency.
Let me explain.
Say my goal is to go to the gym more. There’s a good chance I won’t achieve that goal because it’s not specific. It’s very easy for me to bypass it. If I say I want to go to the gym 4 days a week for the next 6 months there’s a way better chance of me holding myself accountable to that than just saying I want to go to the gym more. I know how many days a week I need to go and for how long, and It’s realistic/attainable with my schedule. That’s a SMART goal.
You also need to have short term and long term goals. Short term goals keep you on track day to day while long term goals take consistent action over a long period of time to achieve. Some of my short term goals are little things like consistently taking creatine and protein right after my workouts for the next 2 months or making sure I stretch properly before every single workout. Some of my long term goals are to be able to do 20 handstand push-ups by 2025 or collaborate with at least 5 other calisthenics influencers by 2024.
So as you can see you can pretty much have goals for anything as long as it follows the SMART method. This goes for anything in life. You should be making goals for different areas of your life as well like work and social. It’s very hard to balance life when many of us have so much going on and it’s easy to get lost in the day to day. Having goals just helps keep us organized, on track, and moving forward to become the best versions of ourselves.
What if I don’t achieve a goal?
That’s okay! Of course you may be disappointed, however think about where you’d be if you never set that goal in the first place. You may have never even started or been nearly as consistent. So despite not accomplishing your goal, coming up short is still better than not even trying.
Good things come with hard work and consistency over a long period of time. Set goals to keep you accountable and you’ll stay consistent forever..
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