Goal setting

Goal setting

All good plans start with a clear, concise picture of the desired objective. The main problem starts when the objective is not clearly defined. When was the last time you tried to buy a new car and you just hoped the money would show up in your account?

Hopefully never! So why do so many people go the gym and hope that they will lose fat or build muscle? You must have clearly defined goals that work like magnets. They pull you in their direction. The better YOU DEFINE them, the better YOU DESCRIBE them, the harder YOU WORK to achieve them, the stronger THEY PULL.

And I’m sure you will agree that there are a lorry load of excuses to block your road to really shaping up, so you’ll need a very strong magnet to pull you forward. My Dad always said, “Obstacles are what you see when you take your eyes off the goal.”

I want you to be truly honest with yourself. Do you think that you can casually or unintentionally lose over a stone of weight or tone your hips, thighs, stomach or whatever? No way!

Do you think deep down that if you believe your genetics make a slim physique something that is out of your limits, that you will ever achieve any significant results? Of course not!

And when was the last time you hoped for something and it actually happened? Probably never! Right now, ask yourself if there is any circumstance that could prevent you from achieving your goal and begin planning how you will respond if and when that circumstance arises.

I want you to actually record on a piece of paper the habits in your life that will be required to change so that you can lose more fat, improve you tone, increase your muscle mass or whatever you want.

Better yet, ask yourself, “How committed am I to my goals on a scale of one-to-ten?” If you are only a seven or an eight, ask yourself, “What would make me a ten?” What is holding you back from being committed to your goals 100%?

If you are only committed to your goal seven or eight out of ten, that’s fine, but be prepared to get an equal return on your investment. Like the old saying goes, “You get what you pay for.”

You must be prepared to break old habits and build new habits.

Habits are basically like automatic behaviors. I will be the first to admit that breaking bad habits and forming new habits is not easy at all. If it were, you would have no financial problems, perfect relationships, a healthy body and you would be on top of the world!

The ‘sick-cycle’ is a term used to describe the continuous cycle of poor choices. When we continue to make choices that lead to the same dead end, we are in the midst of a sick cycle.

It’s interesting how you have probably tried to break an old habit by doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result. It’s foolish. Why can’t we see that trying to write a different ending to a story by mentally writing a different story in our minds just does not work and it will never work!

Creating new habits to truly transform your body is not easy and will require you to assess which habits in your life need to be destroyed.

But you probably already know what habits are destroying your progress. The biscuits with your tea, the take-away on a Friday, the wine / beers on a Saturday etc. But knowing what to do is not enough. In my opinion, YOU DO NOT TRULY KNOW ANYTHING (you might have talked about it) UNTIL YOU actually EXPERIENCE AND LIVE IT!

“A bad habit never disappears miraculously; it’s an undo-it-yourself project.”
-Abigail Van Buren-

Here are some tips to help you create new habits:

In his book “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” (Simon & Schuster, 1990), Stephen Covey compares the making and breaking of habits to the launching of a spacecraft. “To get to the moon those astronauts literally had to break out of the tremendous gravity pull of the Earth.”

I also have an analogy that has helped me break some of my own bad habits:

Visualize your hands clasped together, finger-over-finger, and tied together with tight string. This picture represents adherence to a bad habit. Every time you resist a bad habit, one of these strings will come undone. This represents resisting your bad habit once. Since you have only removed one string the bad habit is still present. However, as you continue to resist and resist, another string, and another, and another will fall off your hands and eventually your hands will be free to move and come apart freely.

This analogy works in reverse as well. Every time you reinforce a bad habit, a new string binds tighter around your hands and it will become harder and will require more time to remove all the strings tying your hands together.

Rarely are genetics the problem in achieving significant results, whether weight loss or muscle building. Most of the time the problem is YOU!

However, if you truly are genetically cursed, you will always have to work a little harder to keep up to par but I believe you will be quite surprised with the results you attain using my nutrition and training programmes.

The question is always about how much you want to reach your goal!

Don’t be lazy, be lean! And feel free to forward this to your friends or relatives who may need a push in the right direction.

Have a great week