GOAL SETTING & GOAL GETTING: THE 5 W’s

Almost everyone has various goals in all aspects of their lives, and those that don’t, lack purpose and direction. However those who have unrealistic or incorrectly set goals also lack this purpose and direction, and find that they waste so much time ‘trying’ to achieve their goal, without every really getting out of first gear, and subsequently fail. In essence, we all should have many short, medium and long term goals, and should not limit ourselves to achieving one at a time. A unilateral approach often has a negative impact in other aspect of your life. For example, setting out purely to earn twice as much money this year as you did last year may well have a huge impact on the time you have available for your family, your friends, and yourself, which will have other consequences such as family problems, a feeling social seclusion, decreased fitness, and many health problems such increased stress as a cocktail of all of the above.

This article focuses on the structure of setting clear goals. The format should be used for every single goal, and you should rememeber not to limit yourself to one ambition.

It is vitally important to set clear and distinct goals, and then not stop until you have achieved them, whether they are social, family or work related, physical or anything else. If you don’t set appropriate goals and follow several principles, rarely will you will ever achieve them.

An example of an ineffective goal would be to state that ‘this year I am going to lose weight’. In this instance, how much  weight do you want to lose? Is it really weight you want to drop, or is it simply a clothing size or 3? By what time this year do you want to have achieved this goal? Why do you want to achieve it? How are you going to achieve it? You can see that the ‘goal’ is highly flawed, and leaves far too much room for ultimate failure, which is quite possibly why you are reading this and thinking of all those times you have said to yourself that ‘this is the year that I’m gonna get thin’, only to still be sat there wishing that you had stuck to exercising and eating right.

The difference between succeeding and failing in life, fitness and love, can be the way in which you go about setting, and then accomplishing your goals. The following information is not ‘cutting edge’, nor is it amazing new research. What it is, is simple and highly effective advice that will ensure that one week, one month, one  year from  now, you won’t be sat there wondering why you haven’t achieved everything that you set out to in that time period.

The principles of goal achievement, as I see them, are illustrated perfectly by ’The 5 W’s’

1. WHAT

The key to effectively answering this, is to ensure that the goal is specific to you and what you want to achieve. The goal should also something that you can successfully measure. For example, rather than stating ‘I want to lose be thinner’, you need to specify a realistic and attainable (yet challenging) target. So saying that ‘I want to be a size 10′ would be a great start to effectively setting the goal. This however, is still incomplete and is setting you up for failure before you even begin your quest.

2. WHEN?

Nice and easy, put a date on it. In the example used above, no time scale is given, making the goal very vague and lacking purpose and thus leaves great risk of failure. Simply saying you wish to become a size 10 is not enough. When do you want to do it by? Tomorrow? Next week? 6 weeks? 6 months? A year from now? As I’ve said, it’s very simple stuff! Now our goal could look like this: ‘I want to be a size 10 by July 6th 2009′. Now we’re starting to pave the path toward total goal achievement and our ideal shape, and are ready for the next W.

3. WHY?

It’s all very well and good setting a goal such as that above, but without being totally 100% honest with yourself and discovering why it is that deep down you want to achieve it, there’s little hope of you going the distance.. In order to be fully aware of why you wish to achieve the goal, it may be necessary to do some soul searching, and not be scared to tell yourself the home truths that have been at the back of your mind for months or  maybe years. So look at your newly written goal, and pick it apart. The following example may help . . . .

‘I want to be a size 10 by July 6th 2009′

Why?

Because that’s the date I’m going to be in public in just my swimsuit on the beach.

Why do you want to be a size 10 for that?

Becuase I am too big and don’t look how I want to look.

What do you want to look like?

I want to look healthy and fit, with the body of my youth, rather than the sluggish, motivation lacking person that stares back at me in the mirror now.

So why do you really want to lose the inches?

Because my self esteem is low, I lack energy, I often get breathless climbing the stairs, and I’m tired of having to wear black, baggy clothes in an attempt to cover up the body that my sedentary lifestyle has caused me to develop.

Job done. We have uncovered WHY you want to become a size 10, and now our goal can look as follows:

‘I want to become a size 10 by July 6th 2009 so that I can look great and feel confident in my swimwear on holiday’

4. WILLINGNESS

Now our goal is properly constructed, written down, and staring us in the face, it’s time to ask one final question . . .

‘Am I willing to devote the time, energy and money necessary to achieve my goal?’

To answer this you have to first know the relevant info.

How much time per day/week/month am I going to have to devote to achieving? Am I willing to get up that extra hour early in the morning, train on my lunchbreak or miss out on eating and drinking at the pub with friends on a Saturday night?

How much effort am I going to have to put into achieving it? Am I willing to plan my meals, make sure I follow a training programme strictly, learn to say no to fast food and sedentary habbits?

How much money is it going to cost me? Am I willing to pay X amount for a gym membership, X amount for a better quality diet and X amount for some new gym shoes? (losing weight doesn’t have to be expensive I might add, these are just examples!)

If you can answer that yes, you are willing to commit 100% to achieving your goal, you are ready to get started, and work toward the final W.

5. WINNING

Winning; to be successful or victorious in a test. In this case, the test is your goal, and winning is accomplishing exactly what you set out to. Winning is not always easy, and with any real goal, comes hard work, effort and quite often sacrifice. If you have been willing to totally commit to achieving the goal, and have successfully implemented your goal achievement plan (in the above example, a nutrition and fitness programme), you will have won. So when it comes to July 6th 2009, when you are standing proud in your swimwear, not only will you be confident and glowing with health and vitality, but you will be safe in the knowledge that you have achieved a target that so many before you have set out to do, only to fail at the third, second or even first hurdle. You will have won.

Yours in health and vitality

Andy Sloan

www.procisionfitness.com

andy@procisionfitness.com

07843 438173

Tags: goal setting, health dorset, health weymouth, personal training weymouth

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 19th, 2009 at 4:17 pm and is filed under Articles.