Welcome to part two of this mini-series that aims to help you set goals that will motivate and challenge you. If you missed part one click here to catch up.
If you read the goal examples I gave in part one, you may have noticed that every goal included a time scale e.g. I will achieve ‘xyz’ in 4 weeks’ time. To be truly motivating a goal needs a timescale or an end date, other wise you can just keep putting it off again and again.
I find it’s useful to split goals into 3 timescales – short, medium, and long term - and that it is good to have one going in each timescale at the same time. But how to decide how long you need for each goal, and how will you motivate yourself to achieve it?
Below I’ll take you through the different timescales and explain what kinds of goal are realistic for each one.
Short Term Goals
These goals should take between 2 and 4 weeks to achieve, and you can constantly renew them as you continue to progress. They can also be used as steppingstones towards your medium- and long-term goals. For example: If you have a medium-term best effort goal to be able to run 10km in under an hour you might have a short-term process goal to run 3 times a week every week for 4 weeks which would help you towards it.
Short term goals are great to give you a regular feeling of achievement and progress which helps keep you motivated. To ensure you meet these goals, keep the improvements you want to make incremental. For example, if you have just started going to the gym and lifting weights don’t set a goal of squatting 1.5 x your body weight in the first 4 weeks – firstly because this is unrealistic, and secondly, because it’s unlikely that you will have mastered the technique and built-up adequate stabilization in this time to achieve the goal safely and without injury. Instead try a goal like this: I will increase my squat weight for 3 sets of 8 reps by 10kg over the next 4 weeks.
Medium Term Goals
Set these goals to be achieved in 2-3 months. You can be more ambitious here than in your short-term goals as you have more time. These are also great to use as mid-way markers for your long-term goals, to check your progress. For example: You have set the goal of running a marathon in a year’s time. Set another goal to run a half marathon in 12 weeks’ time. It will be a great achievement and will help inform your training for the next few months.
Health type goals make great medium-term goals too. The length of time you commit to enables you to form a new healthy habit and to also feel and see the benefits of it. For example, setting the goal to increase your water intake to 2 litres a day (plus what you consume during exercise) over 8 weeks gives you chance to see and feel the benefits of being properly hydrated in the long term. Meaning that you’ll probably keep doing it even after you have achieved your goal.
Long Term Goals
These are goals that you set for the next 6 to 12 months. They can be big, best effort goals, such as competing in a race or big sporting event; or it could be a health goal such as improving a postural dysfunction or losing/gaining weight. The key with long term goals is to ensure that you can track your progress and have regular check ins, either with yourself or with your personal trainer. This could be in the form of regular assessments (postural, strength or cardio depending on your goal), progress photos/videos or taking body measurements.
Don’t be afraid to adjust your long-term goals based on your check ins as well – if you’re already smashing your goal after 12 weeks, be more ambitious – give yourself a challenge. Or on the other hand, maybe your training hasn’t gone the way you’d hoped, sometimes life gets in the way, and that’s alright. Re-adjust your goal to keep it achievable, and maybe the original goal can be set again in the future.
How to stay motivated?
Motivation is what you need to keep you on track to achieving your goals. But sometimes it can be hard to maintain. There are 2 main types of motivation – intrinsic and extrinsic.
Intrinsic motivation comes from inside you – for example some people can happily head out for a run, or a bike ride every day purely because they enjoy it and that is enough motivation to do it. Other forms of intrinsic motivation might be getting your PR on a specific Strava segment or a PB lift in the gym.
For others, or sometimes just for different goals, extrinsic motivation can be helpful. This is motivation that comes from outside – or you can think of it as more like a reward for achieving your goal. For example, you might set yourself the process goal of going to the gym twice a week for the next 8 weeks, and if you achieve that you can reward yourself with a new gym outfit/spa day/fancy meal out – anything that you’ll really look forward to.
If you’re relatively new to exercise it can often be helpful to start off by giving yourself some extrinsic motivation to help you commit, but once you’re hooked on your chosen activity, you’ll probably find that the intrinsic motivation becomes enough!
Your Goals
At the end of part one I told you to write down a goal you have in each category. Now I want you to go through each goal and give it a time scale. Then decide how you are going to motivate yourself to achieve these goals and any rewards you might give yourself on completion, and write that down too.
You're well on your way to great goals now, stay tuned for part three where we'll look at the last few details you need to make sure you stick to them!
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