How To Pick A Better (More Exciting) Training Goal

Now I'm sharing what I know with you fitness , nutrition and all the deeper stuff to help you discover your strongest body . Hello , hello , welcome back , betsy here .

One of the things when I started the new podcast this podcast so I had a podcast previously that helped trainers loved the podcast , but I thought it felt a little sometimes robotic , and one of the things I love about listening to other podcasts is sort of getting the human side of the host and getting to know a little bit about them .

And as I sit here trying to do that in this podcast , I think like I don't have anything really interesting that I want to share or think will be interesting to let you know the human side of me . I thought I'd have these little anecdotes that would sort of connect , and now I'm a bit searching for those , so to speak . So we'll work on that .

That will be an evolving piece of this podcast . So I guess I'll spare you me trying to come up with some personal stories and just pop into the topic of today , which is going to be picking your training goal . Now , one of the big things that you hear in fitness is about having to have a goal .

Goal focused training is highly popular and is a big part of what personal trainers learn in their work to develop programs and services for clients .

Goals get a lot of attention in fitness , for good reason , because , when it comes to training , specificity is queen , meaning what we train for specifically , what we practice specifically , what we get reps of , is what adapts in our body , is what gets better , which is also super important because if you are sort of aimlessly training , you are going to get some

sort of training effect , but you can't control the effect that you're going to get and it might be more just load on the body , stress on the body , exhaustion , fatigue , versus specifically choosing exercises , choosing rep schemes , choosing workout length , choosing days of the week to work out , choosing the order of the exercises , choosing the style of training which

will more directly pinpoint the things that you want in order to help you successfully reach that goal in a time frame that works for you .

Now I'm going to talk in this episode a lot about how we can pick better goals , how we can pick goals that more align with what we actually want and goals that really motivate our training , really spark something in our training .

But I want to also kind of quickly say that goals alone aren't the most important thing in your training and for folks who are professional athletes , who are paid to train , who are consistently working out with a plan with all of the pieces in place to support them , a goal is going to have more weight and is going to be more helpful and more important to

stick to in their fitness or in their athletic journey .

For the average fitness enthusiast , particularly those who have full-time jobs or kids or ailing parents or a home to take care of or friends to see or a life outside of the gym , goals are going to be helpful , but they don't have to be the only thing that matters and realizing sometimes just getting a workout in whether it's perfect for your goals , whether it's

absolutely ideal , is more important than getting it exactly right . So goals are important and goals are going to direct our training . So for a lot of us who just need more movement , who need consistency , things like that . Sometimes those goals are supportive and just getting it done is helpful too .

So I want to stress that deciding the perfect goal and getting all that set up before you start is not necessary , and that these goals can shift and change and there's nothing set in stone here about what it is you're going to do . When we pick a goal that is aligned with what we want to do , that is going to really help direct our training .

That is going to give us a little bit of fire . We can make some magic in the gym . So that's what we're going to talk about today . So let's start with what is the standard for goal setting ? It's typically called smart goals . You may have heard this in either fitness or in business or sort of other realms , because it's a really common acronym .

But I'm going to explain it . It's specific , that's the S . I had a second where I was like do I remember this ? Specific , measurable , so it has some metrics that you can look at . Goal is the A , so you can actually attain it .

Realistic both of those things seem a little bit similar to me , but I think the realistic part is typically about how it can fit in your life , and timely so that it has some sort of time bound element , so that you have a sense of haste or whatever is an appropriate amount of speed that you're putting toward this , so it's not sort of aimless in terms of

time .

So SMART goals are what that system is taught to many people , particularly trainers who are starting to work with clients , and it's a great starting framework because it gives you concepts around building those goals and things to be thinking about , especially when you feel really overwhelmed by the idea of what even is a goal to pick .

I like it , but I am going to give you what I think are three better questions . They've got more to them and that I think will create some more interesting goals , because I think sometimes these SMART goals that fit in that little framework are just plain boring and a little , I don't know , like stale stale to me , and they can easily become stale Again .

I think it's a good framework to start with , but I think if you're working , if you're training yourself , if you're trying to drum up some kind of for lack of a better term intrinsic motivation to get your workout going , I want you to think about these three questions . So what makes me excited when I picture doing it .

So I want to think about that goal and I want to picture something that is going to make me genuinely excited to accomplish it and that gives you a lot of that's not just one kind of goal there are lots of goals but I want you to do some visualization .

Close your eyes , picture that person , that you , the version of you that is going to achieve that goal somewhere down the line , and what is the thing that excites you ? In the same vein , does it make you a little nervous that you might not get it done ?

Listen , any goal that you feel like you can immediately accomplish is helpful to have because it's going to in many ways . That's how we want to address habit changes . We want to . We want to start with the things that are for sure we can get this done , or I have almost 100% confidence that I can get this done .

But when we talk about goals that are going to direct our programming in the future , I want to be a little nervous that I can't get there , and then from that , I'm going to start to break that down into more doable steps .

But if there isn't a little nerves , if there isn't a little bit like , I'm not sure I could get there , then you probably could already be doing that thing and you haven't lit the fire yet .

Again , I keep coming back to this lighting the fire because I think there's something that you can really harness about the excitement , about the possibility that is going to drive some extra oomph to what it is you're doing . And for many of us , the fitness habits we have are out of obligation , are a slog . What could happen if it wasn't that way ?

What could happen if there was a little bit of excitement and a little bit of promise ? I don't know if there's anybody in here from the CrossFit community listening , but CrossFit does it well .

Crossfit does the pushing past the edge of comfort , it does the think about doing the impossible in a way that does really light up people who do CrossFit , and so I think there's something there to take and to channel . Whether you do CrossFit or you do any other kind of training , there's something to take there .

And then the third question I want you to ask yourself is how quickly do I think I could accomplish this , or at least one segment of this ? So I'm having you come back to the timeliness of it and make a commitment on the time , or at least a commitment to .

I'm gonna get this part of it by this time , realizing that these commitments are artificial and they can shift and they can change . Sometimes your fitness goals take a backseat to your real life , and that's okay , but sometimes having the vision is all you need to get the ball rolling . That's a big piece of it .

So , if you notice , what I've done is sort of take out the realism and attainable thing from this smart goals , because I'm just I just think it's like it delves the fire . It delves the fire and it becomes another thing on your to-do list and it becomes less vision board and more grocery list . And grocery list is doable and it's fine , but it's boring .

It's boring . So have some boring goals but have some big goals , and that's what I'm gonna get to . Next is , I think you can have two kinds of goals , or you can have lots of different kinds of goals , but some ways that I would think about dividing up your goals .

We're gonna talk about the different kinds of goals and then you may wanna have a mix of these . We don't wanna necessarily be trying to accomplish more than two or three things at a time , but again , there is an element to having some options . That gives you some freedom when we talk about fitting all this into our real life .

So let's talk about a couple of the kinds of goals , my favorite . I'm gonna start with my favorite , actually , which is I'm jumping . I'm skipping what I thought I was gonna do , but I'm jumping to the favorite . So for me , I think you could have a reality goal and a reach goal .

A reality goal is one in which it's gonna be a little challenging for you , but you know you can do it . You just gotta get all the pieces lined up and commit to it . The reach goal is maybe out of reach , but it is the kind of thing that's going to have you training in a way that excites you . It's gonna have you pushing .

So I talked about in a previous episode about how do you get yourself to push yourself . If you are always picking things that are easy to do , you will never be pushing yourself . So that reach goal doesn't have to set you up for disappointment . It sets you up for excitement , it sets you up for drive , it sets you up for pushing past .

Oh , last week I heard myself and I really punched those peas . So I'm trying to sit back a little bit from the mic so I don't bother you , but I want you to push past what you think you can do . I want you to think about the people who play professional sports . So I'm gonna pick football , because that's what I've been thinking about lately .

There are 32 teams in the NFL . Every single person on every one of those teams , I'm betting . Their goal is to win the Super Bowl . There are only going to be 53 people on one team that win the Super Bowl , that's it . But all of those people are going to have that as their goal .

Does that mean that it's a bad goal , because not everybody's gonna reach it ? No , it is the goal that's gonna have them out there playing their hardest every game . So I think sometimes , with those smart goals , we stop ourselves from really pushing . Again , I will make a little note that you are not a professional football player , unless you are , which whoa .

Thank you for listening , and if you could write a review and please put your name in there , that would be helpful . But no , most of us at least listening aren't gonna be professional athletes . I'm not . It doesn't mean that I can't have goals that I'm gonna be pushing past what I think I can do .

Those are so good , and it doesn't mean you're a failure if you don't reach them . I think that's a little bit what the smart goal piece is about , because it's this fear of failure that's gonna derail your progress , and I think that's important when it comes to instituting the little steps and the habit changes along the way .

So , again , when I talk about habit change , I talk about when you're adding a workout in or adding minutes to your workout , or adding in an extra walk or changing something about your diet . We aim to do things in small increments that feel completely doable , so that you have wins stacked up on top of each other and you can build these habits progressively .

But that's different than setting training goals , so I think that's sometimes where we get lost . I think it's important for us to have both those really realistic , attainable goals and then the ones that you wake up the next day and you're like all right , I'm gonna do this , and I think that's what we have on January 1st .

Oftentimes People have pretty amazing resolution energy and I think we just have to figure out a way to harness that , and we have to figure out a way that it's not necessarily a resolution that we can be unsuccessful at , it is a driving force for us . So I said a real , a reality goal and a reach goal .

Other goals that are important to have or ways you can categorize these goals are outcome versus habit . So an outcome goal is something where you can not literally control the action of reaching that goal without all the steps . So something like a performance goal .

If you thought about , like get a pull up , or get my first push up , or lift a certain amount of weight , or get this , you know , whatever it is , win a championship , like I said , that's a performance goal , a behavior goal . Sorry , I said habit goal , but behavior goal is something that is about what you can do .

So your behavior goal might be to get to the gym three times this week . Your behavior goal might be to have more protein at lunch three times this week . Those you have more direct . What's the word I'm thinking of ?

Contribution to that's not exactly what I was thinking about , but you have more power over that goal versus the performance goal , which is , to a certain extent , a little bit out of your control , but you can do the things that help you get there . So your goals if you took your performance goal and broke it down into behavior goals .

You might increase the amount of times that you were training . If it was your pull-up goal . You increase the frequency of training the pull-ups , things like that Consistency and steps and things like that that can be a behavior goal as well .

It's really going to be helpful probably to have both of those , because , again , putting some things that are out of reach is helpful , and then also having things that are really within your control are helpful , and then thinking about time-wise . So having some goals that you can achieve pretty quickly are really helpful . You want some wins early .

So can you have a goal that's going to be four weeks or six weeks along , great . Then have one that's your six-month goal and then have one that's your year goal or your five-year goal , whatever that may be . That really reach-far goal keeps you moving forward , but those short-term goals allow you wins in the immediate .

If you notice , most of the things I'm talking about is having some different options so that you have multiple ways to train and to have successes . Sometimes the success is just knowing that you got to the gym . Sometimes the success is being more excited about what it is that you were doing . So I encourage you to take training .

That's maybe one of the biggest things behind what I want to do with my podcast and my business and I think I said it in the first episode is to take this thing that feels like such a chore for people , that feels like such a must-do not a love to do .

I know you're not going to love every aspect of it , but wouldn't it be so cool to have some moments where there's like real excitement , real fire about what it is you can do , what your body can do , what your mind can do , your mind pushing through the hard stuff and continuing to show up . What an absolute win .

All right , so I'm going to leave you with those three more inspiring questions here to finish out , and then I'm going to let you go . So if you're thinking about goals , you can think about those smart goals , but I want you to think about these three questions .

I want you to think about what makes me excited , to picture a future version of myself doing what makes me excited ? Not what feels like a win , not what feels like what everybody thinks my goal should be . What makes me excited ? What makes me a little nervous that I might not be able to actually get it done .

Okay , there's got to be an element that it feels a little bit out of reach . And then , how quickly do I think I can accomplish this , or at least the first segment of this ? All right , what I want you to do is listen to this episode and then , if you come up with a new training goal , I want you to send it to me .

Either email me , betsy , at bfosterstrongcom , or send it to me in the DMs at foster underscore strength . I'd love to hear what they are . I'd also love to be an accountability partner in this . So you send it to me and then I'll be your cheerleader along the way . Thank you , as always , for listening to the podcast .

These things live out on the internet and I'm trying to get them to reach so many people . So , if it was helpful for you and you think it might be helpful for somebody else , if you can share the podcast , if you're on Apple podcasts , you can leave a rating and or a review . All of those are super helpful .

If someone's searching , they see a podcast has reviews that relate to them or has a great rating . Those things just help people go . Oh , she might know what she's talking about and I feel like I do . So thank you as always . Until next time , go build your strongest body , and I'll talk to you soon . Bye .