As I promised yesterday, here is the very effective 11-step formula to set your goals. And without further ado, let's get started!!
1. Set specific and clear goalsWhen asking people what they want to achieve from their fitness programs, I
usually get indefinite answers like,"I want to get more fit, I want to lose weight, or I want to
build muscle." And those are perfectly good to begin with, but it’s not enough – it’s a little too general.
Specific goals have a more effective impact on your subconscious than general and indefinite goals.
A vague goal would be kind of like the captain of a ship saying, “Go North.” The ship may be headed in the right direction in general, but without a particular destination, it will never reach it's destination.
You need to narrow it down. Be specific, right down to the numbers. Think how many pounds exactly
you want to lose? When is the deadline of your goal? How much body fat do
you want to get rid of? How much do you want to weigh? How fast you want to run?
2. Set measurable goals
You must have an objective way to measure your progress; how else you’ll
know whether you’ve reached your goals or not. The mirror is of course a useful tool,
because in the end the only thing that really matters is that you’re happy with
the way you look.
Nevertheless, because you might perceive changes in your body quite subjectively,
(and it's kind of like watching your hair grow), it also helps to have other ways to
measure your results. The scale is also one of the most important tools, but neither does it give you
100% of the feedback you need. You should be more interested in the amount of body fat you have,
rather than how much you weigh. The ideal technique to measure your progress is the body composition test. Body fat can be easily measured using a skinfold test.
3. Set your goals high enough
Very frequently people under estimate themselves and say things like, "I'm never going to look like that"
or “I’m too old for this and that.” Many people succumb to the low expectations of wellmeaning
family or friends who tell them to "be realistic." And that's bullcrap! Nothing great was ever
achieved by being realistic! Most of us get "scared" when setting goals and only ask for
what they think they can achieve, not what they really want to achieve! This is a mistake
because insignificant, so to say “realistic” goals are not motivating, wants are those
that motivate the best!!
It’s often good if your goal scares you a little. And, if your goal isn’t scary and
exciting at the same time, then you can say goals might be a little too low. Thinking
about a high goal you’ve never achieved in the past is always going to make you feel
a little "on-you-toes" and afraid.
This uncomfortable feeling is what makes most people pull back into their comfort zone.
You must not let the fear of failure or the feeling of discomfort stop you from going after a goal
that you really want. Remember, always step forward into progress; never pull back into safety.
Raise your standards.
When you set your goals, don't be shy to think a little bigger and set your aim high
because you can only hit what you aim at! Think about what would you really like to
look like if you could have any kind body you wanted, and decide to aim there. Visualize
the picture in your mind. Dream and fantasize it. We all have been blessed with an amazing
creative facility called imagination. Use it; it’s the first step of your new self-image and
all permanent changes.!
Of course, there certainly exists genetic limitations to what we all can achieve athletically and
physically. But, most of us never even come close to ourselves full potential. And that's
simply because they don't believe it's really possible! And that follows that they won’t even try.
I would say it depends more of the individuals willpower than genetics. Don’t ask yourself,
"Is it possible to achieve this goal?" That’s doing it wrong. The proper questions would be like;
“How am i going to achieve this goal?” and, "Am I ready to pay the price required to achieve
this goal?" You can accomplish almost anything if you’re willing to pay the price it takes!
4. Set realistic time limits
“Lose 15 kilos in 30 days!” “Lose 5 kilos in a few days!” You may be familiar with ads like these
on TV all the time, and they sure are catchy. But is it really possible? Can you really lose weight that quickly? The answer is yes. It's quite possible to lose 15 kilos in 30 days or 5 kilos over the weekend.
However, if you do, you’re making a huge mistake by confusing fat loss with weight loss.
Your body is 70% water, so it's relatively easy to lose weight quickly. Any diet that produces fast dehydrating, will create a quick, drastic weight loss. If you need to lose a few kilos
over the weekend, just stop drinking water! Needless to say that would be quite dumb and
somewhat dangerous too, but that's what you do when you lose weight rapidly, you're just
dehydrating yourself (and propably lose some muscle too!). Your goal should be to lose body fat,
not body weight.
The American College of Sports Medicine, large and respected health, medical and exercise
organization, has established good guidelines for healthy weight loss. They are recommending a
weight loss goal of 0,5 to 1 kilos per week. Converting those figures to body fat, that translates
to about a 0,5% per week. At first this may seem like painstakingly slow process, but the safest
and smartest approach to fat loss is a progressive one.
Of course, it’s possible to lose more than 1 kilos per week, but if you do, quite likely most
of the additional grams lost are usually water and muscle. And when you lose water weight,
you'll gain it back as soon as you re-hydrate yourself. Then, when you lose your muscle mass,
-that leads to metabolism slowing down and your body goes into “sstarvation mode". And as
I covered that on my earlier post, you will most definitely gain back the weight you just loss and usually a little more. You'll end up with less muscle and more fat.
5. Set long-term and short-term goals.
When you begin to think about what you specifically want to achieve, don’t just write down one
goal, make an good sized list! Your goal list should include long term and short-term goals.
Here are some types of short and long-term goals you may include:
Your ultimate long-term goal
One year goal
Three month goals
Daily goals (habits to develop, things to do every day day after day)
The goal of beating your personal best.
First set a long-term goal; your ultimate outcome. What kind of body do you
ultimately want to have? Let your imagination run wild and dare to dream. Don’t listen to
anyone who says it can’t be done! You can’t afford to associate with negative people
who always try to tear you down. If you really want it badly and you’re willing to work
for it, then go ahead and set the goal.
Next, set a one-year goal. A one-year goal is especially important if you have a
lot of work to do. For example, if your primary objective is to lose one hundred pounds,
that’s at least a twelve-month project. Don’t expect or even attempt to do it any faster.
Probably the most important goal you can have at any time is your three-month goal.
Three months is the perfect time frame for your short-term goal because a lot can happen
in three months. Most people can completely transform their bodies in 90 days. A
sensible and realistic 90-day goal would be to lose up to 6% body fat and 12 to 24
pounds. The three-month goal is important because long-term goals don’t have any
urgency. A one-year goal is so distant, you may find that you tend to procrastinate more
without the impending deadline.
There’s a law in psychology called “Parkinson’s Law,” which says, “A task takes as long
as there is time to do it.” Differently stated, “Work always expands to fill the time
allowed.” Deadlines are motivating. Without time pressure, you’ll rationalize missing
workouts or cheating on your diet: Your brain will keep saying, “You have plenty of time,
so missing this one workout won’t matter.” With a deadline right in front of you, you’ll
know that every workout and every meal counts.
You also need to have weekly goals to let you know if you’re on track. Weekly
goals provide immediate feedback to tell you whether you’re moving in the right
direction. Each week you should weigh yourself and have your body composition
measured with skinfolds. If you’re getting the results you want, you simply continue
doing what you’ve been doing. If you’re not seeing the results you want, you can
immediately adjust your training or nutrition to get yourself back on course.
To reach your weekly, three-month, twelve-month and ultimate goals, you must
develop good habits every day. You develop good habits by setting daily action goals and
working on them repeatedly until they become as routine as brushing your teeth or taking
a shower. Ninety-nine percent of the actions you take every day are habits. Write out a
list of daily goals, to-do’s and habits you want to develop - good daily habits that serve
you – habits like eating small, frequent meals, cutting down on sugar, getting up early,
making your meals in advance for each day and so on. Long-term goals are important, but
they can be intimidating and discouraging if you don’t have small daily goals, too. If you
only look at the “big picture,” it can sometimes be unsettling to realize how much farther
you have to go.
There’s an old saying about tackling big tasks: “The only way to eat an elephant is
one bite at a time.” When your larger goals are broken down into smaller parts and you
focus on each little step one at a time, you won’t be overwhelmed. “By the mile it’s a
trial, by the yard it’s hard, but by the inch it’s a cinch.” Take baby steps. Every step you
take, no matter how small, will give you a feeling of accomplishment and keep your
momentum going.
The next time you feel a craving, you’re tempted, discouraged, unmotivated or you feel
like skipping a workout, focus on your daily goals, not on the huge amount of work that is
ahead of you. Tell yourself, "All I have is today. All I have is this moment, this workout,
this meal, the next 30 minutes, the next hour. If I just do what I know I must do now,
then I know I'll reach my ultimate goal eventually." Concentrate on the task at hand in this
moment. As the Zen masters of Japan remind us: “Be here now.” The point of power is
always in the present moment.
The final type of goal you should set isn’t so much a goal as it is a mindset. If you
fall into the habit of continually comparing yourself to others, this will ensure that you are
perpetually unhappy and unsatisfied, no matter how much you achieve. This is called the
law of contrast. There will always be people stronger, leaner, faster, more athletically
talented and more genetically gifted than you, so compare yourself only to yourself, not to
others.
Set goals to become better than you used to be, not better than someone else.
Constantly challenge yourself. Keep aiming to beat your previous bests. Going to the
gym can become fun and exciting when you’re always working on improving yourself.
So make it fun – make a contest out of it. Go for one more rep, five more pounds, five
more minutes, or one level higher on the Stairmaster. Aim for hitting your lowest body fat
ever. Work on constant and never-ending improvement. Make this process a fun game!
6. Make emotional reasons why you want to achieve your goals.
Everyone has days when they don’t feel like working out or eating the right foods.
The secret to staying motivated at times like these is not just having a goal, it’s
establishing the "reason why" you want that goal - it is the purpose behind the goal. The
philosopher Nietzsche said, “ If you have a strong enough why you can bear almost any
how.”
Determining the reason you want to achieve a goal adds emotion to it. The more
emotion you stir up, the more motivated you’ll be to go after it. In his Goal Achiever
program, Bob Proctor says, “The moment you get emotionally involved with your goal, it
instantly and automatically begins to move into physical form.” This is true because your
subconscious is the emotional part of your mind. Getting emotionally involved with your
goal impresses it deeper into your subconscious and whatever idea is fixed in your
subconscious will always express itself in physical form (behavior).
Remember, emotion is “feeling.” When you think about the reasons you want
your goal, you are “feeling” with emotion. What are your reasons? Sometimes people
have something to prove. Getting in shape for a wedding or vacation is often an important
reason for many people to get in shape. So is being attractive to the opposite sex. For
others, their reason is fear of health consequences (their doctor tells them if they don’t
lose 50 pounds in the next six months, they will die of a heart attack!)
After you’ve set your goals in terms of a specific weight, body fat, etc, then
continue to re-write an entire list of goals with as much emotional impact as possible. In
particular, answer these two questions: (1) What’s important to me about reaching my
goal? (2) Why is that important?
Some additional questions you might ask yourself to add emotional impact to your
goal list include: Who do you want to look like? Who is your physique role model? Do
you want to look like a bodybuilder, an athlete, or a model? Do you want to impress
anyone? Do you want to prove something? Do you want more energy so you can enjoy
certain sports or activities more? Do you want to win a contest or award? Do you want
more self-confidence? Do you want to look great in a certain type of clothes? Do you
want to look good for a certain event (vacation, wedding, reunion, etc.)? Do you want to
look great on the beach? Do you want to attract someone of the opposite sex? Answering
these questions will help you uncover the driving force behind your goals.
7. Make sure your goals are not conflicting. Put all your attention on your number
one goal!
There's an ancient Chinese saying: "He who chases two rabbits catches neither."
One of the most common obstacles blocking the way to reaching a goal is setting two
goals that are in conflict.
In the case of fat loss, the most common conflicting goal is
trying to gain muscle and lose fat at the same time. It’s common to see a large decrease
in body fat accompanied by a slight increase in lean body mass. It is also common to see
a large increase in lean body mass accompanied by a slight decrease in body fat. But one
thing you will almost never see is a large increase in lean body mass and a large decrease
in body fat simultaneously. It is physiologically impossible to lose fat and gain muscle at
the same precise moment in time. In order to lose fat you need a calorie deficit. To gain
lean body mass you need a calorie surplus. One process is catabolic and one is anabolic.
Therefore, there are big differences in the types of nutritional programs you need to
achieve each of these contrasting goals. Over a period of weeks or months it is certainly possible to see a net gain in muscle and a net decrease in body fat. However, that is the result of alternating back and
forth between short periods of caloric deficit with short periods of caloric surplus (aka,
the zig-zag” method). This is the most difficult of all the goals and it is a slow and
inefficient process. You are compromising your results in both departments if you set
muscle gain and fat loss as simultaneous goals.
Advertising for supplements and weight loss products has brainwashed many people into believing that incredible gains of muscle, along with large losses of fat are commonplace – they’re not! They’re quite rare. When someone successfully makes large muscle gains and fat losses at the same time, usually
they’re merely regaining muscle they’d previously lost, they’re genetic superiors or
they’re using performance-enhancing drugs.
Charles Glass, who has probably trained more professional bodybuilders than any
other trainer advises, "While you are dieting and burning fat, you are not likely to add any
more muscle. Burning fat and gaining muscle do not go together. Concentrate totally on
getting lean and defined during a pre-contest phase and forsake the thought of adding
muscle to what should be an already prepared framework." Although Charles was
speaking of competitive bodybuilders, his advice applies to everyone: Get the fat off first,
then set your new goal for gaining muscle while staying lean.
8. Write out an extensive goal list in the form of affirmations
The next step is to write down all your goals on a sheet of paper or on cards in the
form of statements called “affirmations." There are three rules you must apply when
writing your affirmations:
1. First, your affirmations must be personal: Use the word “I.” One of the best ways
to start an affirmation is to use the phrase “I AM” or “I have.” Your subconscious
only responds to commands given to it in a personal manner. Anything you say
after “I AM” has power. One of the best affirmations I have ever heard comes
from Bob Proctor, and it goes like this: “I am so happy and thankful now that I
am________________” (fill in your goal).
2. Second, your affirmations must be written in the present tense. To your
subconscious mind, there is no future. Your subconscious mind only responds to
commands given to it in a present tense. It may feel strange to write a goal in the
present tense, but if you write it in the future tense (for example, “Next year I
will” or “I’m going to”), your subconscious mind will make sure it always stays in
the future. Always write, think and visualize your goal as if you have already
achieved it.
3. Third, you must state your goal in terms of the positive. Your subconscious
moves you towards whatever you think about whether it’s positive or negative.
Therefore, write what you want, not what you want to avoid.
9. Read your your goal list at least twice a day and always keep your
goals “in front of you” and “on your mind.”
Psychologists have proven that repetition is an effective way to penetrate and
program the subconscious mind. Fortune 500 companies spend millions of advertising
dollars every year based on this fact. Why is it that people reach for Coke, Pepsi,
Budweiser, Marlboro, Crest, Palmolive and other brand name items? It’s because the
repetition of the advertising has penetrated their subconscious minds and moved them to
action.
You can use the power of repetition to influence your own subconscious and
move yourself into action. Once your affirmations are written out, read your list at least
twice per day, once in the morning and once at night. Read them more often if you can. If
you want to amplify the effect of the affirmation technique even more, don't just read
your affirmations; write them out by hand every single day.
Once you’ve set all your goals and written your affirmations, use the power of
repetition even more by literally “keeping your goals in front of you” all day long. Post
your goal statements in a conspicuous place such as your refrigerator, your bathroom
mirror or in your daily appointment book. Keep a goal card of your 90-day goal in your
pocket. Paste them onto the dashboard of your car. Stick them on the top of your
computer monitor so you have to look at them all day long.
You may have been exposed to this affirmation technique before and shrugged it
off as "corny." If so, let me ask you this: Did you really give it an honest trial? Did you
put 100% effort into it and put it to the test for at least 21 days in a row? If not, then
you’re denying yourself the chance of achieving everything you ever dreamed of. Don’t
let the simplicity of the affirmation technique fool you. Be open and don’t judge it.
Affirmations are far more powerful than you can imagine, but they can’t work
when you just “try” them once or twice. They won’t work even if you do them for a few
days. They won’t work if you say them and then cancel them out with negative
affirmations like “this is stupid!” They only work when you continue to repeat them with
faith, emotion and belief over and over again so many times that they completely replace
your old, negative internal dialogue.
Your affirmations must become the new “tape” that runs over and over in your mind every day.
When you reach the point where your affirmations become your new habitual way
of thinking, the results will astound you and what you have been imagining will
begin to materialize in your life.
10. Read your goals with faith in them
William James, the “father” of American psychology, wrote that the subconscious
will bring into reality any picture held continually in your mind and backed by faith.
Napoleon Hill, author of Think and Grow Rich and The Law of Success, said, “All
thoughts which have been emotionalized and mixed with faith begin immediately to
translate themselves into their physical equivalent.”
What is faith? Faith is just another word for unshakeable belief. Faith is
believing in what you can’t see. Faith is knowing that eventually you will reach your
goal, even though you look in the mirror and see that little or nothing has changed yet.
The opposite of faith is doubt. Shakespeare said, “Our doubts are out traitors, and make
us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.” The poet William Blake said,
“If the sun and moon would ever doubt, they would surely go out.” In short, you must
practice believing in yourself, or “banishing the doubt”.
How do you cultivate this attribute of faith? Act as if. Read affirmation
statements written in the present tense as if they were already achieved. See mental
pictures of yourself as if you had already achieved your goal. When you look in the
mirror every day, see what you want to become, not what is presently there. Behave as if
you were already there. Speak as if you were already there. “Act as though I am and I
will be,” says the ancient proverb. If this seems like you’re “lying” to yourself; well, yes,
that’s exactly what you’re doing. Repeat a “lie” often enough and you’ll soon start to
believe it and act on it.
To quote personal development expert Denis Waitley again, “Every captain
knows his next port of call, and even though he cannot see his actual destination for fully
99 percent of his voyage, he knows what it is, where it is and that he will surely reach it if
he keeps doing certain things in certain ways every day.” That’s the essence of faith –
continuing to take action towards your destination even when you can’t see it yet!
Read your goal lists with faith! Believe it’s going to happen, no matter what is
actually happening at the moment. If you read affirmations while at the same time
doubting that you can achieve them, you are canceling out the affirmation before it ever
has a chance to take root; it never reaches your subconscious mind.
11. As you read your affirmations, mentally visualize them as already achieved.
Visualization means making mental pictures or images – it’s thinking without
words. The brain thinks in pictures. If you think of a mountain, you probably don’t see
M-O-U-N-T-A-I-N spelled out in your mind. If you’re like most people, you see an image
of a mountain. If I ask you to think about your car, you’ll instantly get a picture of your
car in your mind.
Because your brain thinks in pictures, adding a bright, clear, moving mental
picture of what you want to achieve will help you to penetrate your subconscious mind
more rapidly and more deeply than if you just read your goals. In Psycho - Cybernetics
Dr. Maltz wrote, “Experimental and clinical psychologists have proven beyond a shadow
of a doubt that the human nervous system cannot tell the difference between an "actual"
experience and an experience imagined vividly and in detail.” As with affirmations,
visualization is most effective when your body is in a relaxed state, because that’s when
your subconscious mind is accessed most easily.
In the book Peak Performance, Mental Training Techniques of the World’s
Greatest Athletes, Charles Garfield writes; “Without a doubt, the most dramatic
contribution to the advancement of goal-setting skills in recent years has been the
Soviet’s introduction of visualization. During mental rehearsal, athletes create mental
images of the exact movements they want to emulate in their sport. Use of this skill
substantially increases the effectiveness of goal-setting, which up until then had been
little more than a dull listing procedure.”
Garfield went on to talk about a startling experiment conducted by Soviet sports
scientists. The study examined the effect of mental training, including visualization, on
four groups of world-class athletes just prior to the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics. The four
groups of elite athletes were divided as follows:
Group 1 – 100% physical training
Group 2 – 75% physical training, 25% mental training
Group 3 – 50% physical training, 50% mental training
Group 4 – 25% physical training, 75% mental training
What the researchers found was that group 4 – the group with the most mental
training – had shown significantly greater improvement than group 3. Likewise, group 3
showed more improvement than group 2 and group 2 showed more improvement than
group 1.
In Psycho-Cybernetics, Dr. Maltz shared a similar account of an experiment on
the effects of mental practice on improving basketball free throws. The study, published
in Research Quarterly, divided the subjects into three groups. Each group was tested for
free throw accuracy once at the beginning of the experiment and again at its conclusion.
Group one physically practiced free throws for 20 days Group two performed no
practice at all. Group three spent 20 minutes a day getting into a deeply relaxed state and
visualizing themselves shooting free throws.
When they missed, they would visualize themselves correcting their aim accordingly. The results were remarkable: the first group, which practiced 20 minutes a day, improved in scoring 24%. The second group, which had no practice, showed no improvement. The third group, which practiced in their
minds, improved their scoring 23%! Amazingly, mental practice yielded results almost
identical to physical practice.
What does this research on athletes have to do with your losing body fat?
Everything! Remember that the subconscious is the part of the mind that is responsible
for automatic behavior (also known as habits). By visualizing your fat loss or fitness goal
as already achieved, you are giving your subconscious mind instructions that will cause
you to automatically begin acting in a way consistent with your mental image. You’ll go
into automatic pilot mode. There will be less struggle and willpower involved.
When you’re in a situation that used to tempt you, suddenly you’ll notice you are no longer
tempted. If you used to dread going to the gym, you'll start looking forward to it. If the
idea of eating healthy, natural foods used to seem like hard work, you'll actually begin to
enjoy it. Everything will seem to get easier and your workouts will become better than
ever. The end result of making “mental motion pictures” is that you will see results more
quickly than you ever have before.
All great athletes and peak performers use visualization. Jack Niklaus said he
never hit a golf shot, not even in practice, without having a very sharp, in-focus picture of
it in his head. Tennis superstar Andre Agassi once told an interviewer that he won
Wimbledon at least ten thousand times. When asked what he meant by this, Agassi
replied, “Since I was five years old I saw it over and over and over again in my mind.
When I walked on the court that day, it was my exact vision. I felt like I was stepping
into the role I was made for, and I just demolished them!"
Legendary basketball Hall of Famer Bill Russell wrote about his use of mental
imagery in great detail: “I was sitting there with my eyes closed, watching plays in my
head. It was effortless; the movies I saw in my head seemed to have their own projector,
and whenever I closed my eyes, it would run.”
Bodybuilders and fitness athletes use visualization in many ways: they visualize
their workouts or they see themselves successfully completing a lift or performing aerobic
training. They also see pictures of their bodies the way they want them to look when they
reach their ultimate goal. Arnold Schwarzenegger visualized his biceps as mountains;
“When I am doing barbell curls, I am visualizing my biceps as mountains – not just big,
but HUGE!”
Former professional bodybuilder Lee Labrada visualized the skin on his abs
getting tighter and thinner like cellophane wrap clinging to the abdominal muscles as he
was dieting down for competition.
Three time Mr. Olympia Frank Zane said that he
mentally saw himself winning the Mr. Olympia at least one million times before it
actually happened.
Former Ms. Olympia, Rachel Mclish said, “I visualize the blood
surging through my muscles with every repetition and every set I do. When I pose, I’ve
got a mental picture of how I want to look. When you have that in your brain, the
physical body just seems to respond. Its important to tell yourself you are good and you
look wonderful.”
What if you’re not good at visualizing? What if you can’t see “vivid Technicolor
pictures” in your mind? Don’t worry about it– everyone creates mental images in their
own unique way. Some people see clear vivid pictures, while others get only
impressions. You’ll get results either way and you’ll also get better with practice.
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