Goal Setting
New Years, new resolutions right? But how do you set yourself up for success? We are all guilty of saying that this will be the year that we ______. Whether your goal is to complete a race, set a personal best time, squat your body weight, lose 10 pounds, work on our mobility, or just live a healthier lifestyle, we all set our own goals, but one of the biggest mistakes that we make is that we don’t create any accountability for ourselves.
We give lip service to our goals, but never take the first step to commit, so by the time January 31st rolls around, most of us have completely forgotten about them.
NO MORE!
Here at Peak Performance, we want you to do more than just set goals, we want to help you achieve them, so today we are going to provide you with an easy 3 step process to get you going and keep you focused.
1. Set SMART Goals! One of the most valuable lessons I took out of PT school was how to set my patients up for success by setting SMART goals. These are SPECIFIC, MEASURABLE, ATTAINABLE, REALISTIC, and TIMELY. If you are a first-year triathlete, you probably don’t want to set a goal to podium at Kona. Realistically, that just isn’t going to happen for most people. Achieving that level of success is the cumulative effort of years of hard work and dedication. Another mistake is to set goals that are place-oriented instead of time-oriented. For example, if you are a marathon runner, setting a goal to place in a major marathon is much more difficult, because you can only control your own race, not that of your competitors (unless you want to pull a Tonya Harding, which we at Peak Performance do not condone, for the record.) Setting a time goal for yourself is much more attainable and removes most of the factors that you cannot control.
2. Write them down! By writing down your goals, you are inherently more likely to follow through. It’s like you are creating a contract with yourself.
3. Put them somewhere visible! By keeping your goals somewhere that you see them regularly, you have a constant reminder of what you are working towards and why you keep grinding when things get tough. Personally, I’ve always liked taping them to the mirror. There is something about seeing your goals next to your reflection that really hits home hard.
Remember setting goals is the easy part. The follow-through is up to you.
If you want more guidance on how to improve your athletic performance and reduce your chance of injury, or need help with a nagging injury, feel free to contact us at Peak Performance so that we can figure out how we can best help you achieve your goals!
