Goal Setting

Setting goals is easy, however for at least 95% of people goal setting is not important, that is why only 5% of people succeed.

If you want success in your new goal, you will need to make it clear, write it down so you can read it – read it and you will act upon it, not only with your physical actions but more importantly with your mental well-being.

Your mind is the strongest tool you have at your disposal, if you want to quit, you will, its easy you just let negative thoughts into your mind, such as “I can't do this”, however if you simply remove the t from can't, you have a positive thought, “I can do this”.

Set your mind each day by reading or listening to positive thoughts, place images around you that make you feel good, images that you can see all the time, these thoughts will result in your own self believe.

1 – Change your screen saver on your computer to give you positive suggestions.

2 – The fridge door, often the cause of excess weight is the food we eat.

3 – Mirror in the bathroom – a simple message such as “smile – brush your teeth and show the world your happy”, will help make you feel good; feeling bad about your own self-esteem is why people will often eat for comfort.

4 – The door to your home, your car your place of work, why settle just for the fridge, the more positive focus points you can place in front of you, the greater the positive results will be.

5 – Listen to positive people, and learn how to bounce negative thoughts away from you – turn every negative into a positive – I can't go for a walk because it's raining – great its raining, know I can test out my new coat.

People who are negative, are people who don't realize that their failure was simply a positive step towards success, unfortunately they let a weak mind prevent them from stepping further forward to achieve their goal.

Once you have prepared your mind, you can then set your goals, with a positive mind your goals will be realistic, greater in value and more obtainable.

With regards weight-loss as a goal, you should look at the word weight-loss and change it to fat loss. The only people that will need to lose weight are jockeys and martial artists (boxers).

Weight-loss is simply, just stop drinking water or stop eating, fat loss, now there is a challenge and goal for a positively minded person – if all you want to do it reduce your weight by 10lb in the next 5 days, then stop reading as you will need to start again once you have set your mind positively – removing fluid and muscle from your body will result in long term negative effects, the short term effect is that you may be 10lb lighter, but you will look 10 years older with no energy to enjoy the reason for your poor judgment in weight loss.

In order to set your goals, you will need to know where you are, and where you want to go. Just like reading a map, if you don't know where you are, how can you arrive at your destination, or if your destination is unknown, then where are you going?

Body fat is often measured as a percentage of your overall body mass, with the remainder being lean healthy muscle tissue. You can purchase bathroom scales that will give you a body fat reading, however these can sometimes be inaccurate, likewise body calipers can be difficult to use. Look at the section on measuring your progress for more advice on calculating body fat.

i.e. I will be reducing my body fat from 35% to 25% within 6 months – I will drop 2 dress sizes in 3 months, remember to write everything in a positive manner, I will, not I want.

In order to make sure that your own the right road to success, its important to measure your progress, just like your journey in the car, you will often check the map to make sure your not driving in the wrong direction.

With your journey looking at taking a few weeks to over a year, aim to make at least ten measurements at regular intervals throughout the duration of your goal. If you spend everyday measuring your achievements, then these achievements even whilst being positive will still feel negatively small.

If you get a negative result, then this is a positive, as all you have done is taking a wrong turn, and found out that your lost. Wrong turns could be going on holiday, been ill, party celebration, or simply inaccurate testing. Stay positive, and get back on track, heading in the right direction, the reason you monitor your goal is to help you see that you're achieving it.

By setting clear and measurable goals, you will not only be able to see your progress clearly but also gain self-confidence and sense of achievement as you achieve your targets, making more difficult goals achievable.

Small goals are easy to achieve, large goals just require more work to make them happen, all you need to ask yourself is are you prepared to work for what you want.

Its important to make sure that your goals are realistic, its often not the final goal that is unrealistic, its simply the time line to achieve them. It may be possible to travel 700 miles in a car in under four hours, but this will mean pushing the car to its limits and increasing the risk of engine failure or major accident, with the end result being a un-complete journey.

Reducing your body fat by 70lb in 12 months is both safe and realistic; you don't want to lose more than 1 – 2 lbs of fat per week. Whatever the amount of excess fat you're aiming to lose, simply think about how long it has taken to get there.

Avoid feeling negative if the time scale does not fit into your specific goal, i.e. you want to lose 70lb in 3 months for a friends wedding, look at the big picture, start today, start right and you will be at the weight you want for the next wedding.

If you aim for the quick fix, you will soon need to lose 80lb, and then be further away from your final goal – do it right and you will only need to do it once!

With your main goal clearly in mind, show the route your going to use to achieve this. Break down the goal by time, and the amount of fat you're going to lose, adding clear markers of when you need to monitor your progress.

Goals that take too long to achieve will lose momentum, break every major goal into smaller more achievable goals, monthly – weekly – daily.

Focus on each goal at hand, your daily goals once achieved will work to become your weekly goals, to your monthly and then your final goal. It's far easier to achieve each daily task to make the weekly task tangible.

Its important to remember that goals should be specific to you, avoid trying to compare yourself to a super model, these people are super because of their genetics and that it is, you can become super because of your personnel achievements.

Feeling negative about the way you look, will start bodily emotions that will cause any form of weight loss difficult, turn every negative into a positive, use your desire to change your body shape to show yourself and others that you can achieve what you desire.

The most important thing to remember when setting goals is to write them down - remember a dream is only a dream when its not written - write down and plan your goals.

Every year there are two main times when everyone wants to lose weight – the New Year's resolution, which normally lasts a week, or the week before your due to lie in the sun on a beach.

Its important to set both long term and short term goals, don't put your body through the unnecessary anguish of aiming to lose 10lbs in 3 days - you will only be losing water and feel tired and look ill for your special occasion. Set yourself a new goal - lose those 10lbs in 3 months and treat yourself to something special after 3 and 6 months - knowing that by doing it right, your results will positive not only after 3 months but more importantly for as long as you continue simple lifestyle changes.