How To Achieve Your Health and Fitness Goals by Being Specific and Deliberate

"If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time". - Zig Ziglar

Through our own experience we know that he is right. The general flow of our lives tends to be toward us trying to make life 'easy' and 'feel comfortable'. One day blurs into the next, and most of us never quite get around to turning our dreams, goals and good intentions into our reality.

The ‘good intentions,’ are admirable, but they tend to remain unrealized mostly because they are

too vague. Vague ideas are impossible to focus on and aim for; they are moving targets.

We all have moving targets in our lives. Maybe it's wanting to eat a healthier diet or lose the

COVID weight that has crept up on you. Maybe it's wanting to establish a regular workout routine

and actually stick with it this time.

There are two keys to success: steady the target and create momentum.

How to stop a moving target

Imagine trying to hit a small bull’s eye on a target that is far away - 500 yards or more. You begin to aim and get settled in, but then the target suddenly moves to the left, and before you can reposition yourself to aim again, the target darts off to the right. Will you ever hit that target? Not likely.

Without setting specific and measurable goals, your good intentions are just like the moving target. You want to lose weight, feel better, make changes to your diet--but without clearly defined

goals and methods, you can’t focus and make it happen.

Clearly defining your goals and writing them down will keep that target from moving:

HOW MUCH weight do you want to lose?
WHAT exact changes do you want to make in your diet?
HOW many days a week do you want to exercise?
WHICH dress do you wish would fit your body again?
HOW MUCH weight would you like to add to your 1-Rep Max while strength training?

Once you know where you want to end up, you are much more likely to get there.

But after you define your goals and they become clear, then you have to start moving toward accomplishing them. That is where momentum comes in.

Create momentum to reach your goals

“Although it may take tremendous amounts of energy to overcome inertia and get started initially, it then takes far less energy to keep going.”1

There is a lot of wisdom in those words. Sometimes, the hardest part of reaching a goal is just getting

started. That first day of doing things differently or the first experience of bypassing the fast food drive-thru in favor of food that will give you more energy can be overwhelming. It isn’t easy and it certainly isn’t always fun.

So how do we get that momentum? How do we get started moving toward those goals? Accountability!

Having someone else involved in your efforts can be the most important factor in your success.

It's hard to change lifelong habits on your own. Especially considering that it takes 66 days to form a new habit. Are we really going to drive past all those fast food restaurants more than 90% of the time when we are on our way home from work and tired? Probably not.

You need radical motivation that comes from involving other people in our efforts. Setting deadlines, making commitments that involve others and entering contests, even spending money and 'putting some skin in the game' all provide an external motivation that will carry us through even the toughest temptations.

Once we get started, we find that the momentum principle kicks in and it becomes easier

and easier to keep going.

Start NOW

You can make that moving target come to a dead stop and blow out that bull’s eye right by

taking a couple of minutes to write down what you want to accomplish. Don’t make your goals too broad; be specific.

After that take another few minutes to begin brainstorming ways to get others involved with you; that is what will provide you with your momentum to overcome that initial inertia. Success is within your reach. You can do this!

We are also here to help you the entire way. For some people getting others involved in their goals means getting their spouse to collaborate with them and provide that extra motivation and more importantly the accountability needed to sustain your efforts and achieve success. For others that might mean hiring a personal trainer, or getting a group of like-minded friends to help each other.

If you're looking for a personal trainer in Jacksonville NC to help provide that accountability (and more), or just want some help with direction and goal setting, fill out the form below and we'll be in touch with you ASAP to get you started.

Part of our initial meeting is to sit down and map out your goals...and we get really specific!