I mentioned briefly in a previous post about setting goals and how they should be specific to increase your chances of them being achieved. This article is going to go in to more detail about how you can set yourself better goals and finally achieve the things you want, you can apply these guidelines to things outside of the gym too!

So what do I mean by a SMART goal?

A SMART goal isn’t one that requires a degree to complete, its a way to break down a particular goal in to manageable and measurable chunks so its easier to track your progress. Lets give some examples of goals that are not SMART goals that you hear people set themselves all the time;

I’m going to lose weight
I’m going to run faster
I’m going to squat more

These are all great goals with good intentions, however they are too vague, they give no indication of when they need to be achieved by and there is no way to accurately measure progress, how much weight do you want to lose? In what time frame? Is that even possible?

people tend to put off starting as there is no deadline to meet, no pressure to achieve and no urgency to take action

If you take a year to lose 6lb, is that good? Did you achieve your goal? How do you know?

Do you see the problem with vague goals?

What we need is a way to set a goal, measure it, monitor it and achieve it, this is where SMART goals come in to play, SMART is an acronym, we’ve broken this down below;

S – Specific
M – Measurable
A – Attainable
R – Relevant
T – Time Based

How can I make a SMART goal?

So lets take some of our examples above and turn them in to SMART goals. You want to lose weight, that’s not specific so lets change it to;

I want to lose fat.

That’s better, its now specific as it specifies fat as being the target, without this it could have been fat, water weight or muscle mass!

Now lets make it measurable;

I want to lose 1 stone of fat.

Your goal is now measurable as you can weigh yourself and record your starting weight, this will give you your target weight when you subtract a stone from it. Adding numbers to a goal is a great way to measure progress, it will also indicate when you have met your goal. You can also measure things like calorie intake so you can be sure you’re dropping the required amount of weight each week to stay on target for the overall goal.

The third stage in setting a SMART goal is to make sure its attainable. Its easy to shoot for the stars and lay down a huge challenge, but is that the best approach to take? Sure, you may feel motivated to begin with when you set down a big number to lose in a short space of time, but when you check your progress and see you’re falling short will you be able to maintain motivation?

You will find that if you apply these principles to your current or new goals you will have much more chance of achieving them and even discovering that you’re doing better than you previously thought you were!

Other factors to consider are things like knowledge and resources, do you have the know-how to lose a stone of fat? or even the time? Sometimes you may need to seek additional help which can add delays to your goals.

The fourth stage is to decide if your goal is relevant to YOU. There’s no point in setting a goal that you have no interest in or that you’re doing just because your friends and family are doing it. Your goals are your motivation, if it doesn’t motivate you then you’ll struggle to achieve it.

The last step ties in with the goal being attainable, this is to apply a time-frame to your goal, you need to set an end date to see if you actually achieved the goal, without an end date people tend to put off starting as there is no deadline to meet, no pressure to achieve and no urgency to take action, remember when you were at school or at work and you had a deadline and you rushed to make sure it was done? The same principle applies here, when you reach the end date you can easily say if the goal was achieved or not.

In our example goal we want to lose a stone which is 14lbs, a healthy rate of weight loss is 1-2lb a week so our completed SMART goal would look something like;

I will lose 1 stone of fat by losing 1lb of fat each week for 14 weeks.

Similarly it could be;

I will lose 1 stone of fat over the next 14 weeks by eating 250 calories less than my body needs per day for the next 14 weeks.

Both are specific, they are measurable, easily attainable, hopefully relevant to you and have an end date of which you aim to complete the goal by.

You will find that if you apply these principles to your current or new goals you will have much more chance of achieving them and even discovering that you’re doing better than you previously thought you were!

Let us know some of your SMART goals in the comments section below.