Setting goals for the year

With your plan for the year ahead hopefully in place and your motivation in fifth gear now should be the time to really nail down what you achieve and where you intend to get to with some solid workable targets.

Many people when trying to nail down their targets for the year can become unstuck because they aim for too much and aim for things to happen too quickly. The trick is to make sure that you create the kind of goals you can be sure to achieve whilst leaving some goals slightly out of your reach so you can aim for the bigger picture. You have to be certain about what you want to achieve and be completely focused on getting where you need to be. There’s nothing worse than setting out goals that you’ll never achieve or attain because this will only hinder your progress and deter you from getting where you need to be. Be sure to focus on exact ideas and goals and make sure you leave room for flexibility and the opportunity to change along the journey if it’s needed. So let’s take a closer look at how to break down your goal setting and what exactly you need to focus on when deciding how best to attack the year.

Be Smart

Be as specific as you can with your target setting for the year and be sure to be clear about how you’re going to get there. There’s nothing worse than a loosely veiled goal or a non specific target as you’ll never be able to fully quantify how you got to the point you’re at or record your results from day zero.

Make sure to specifically identify what you want to achieve by putting a quantity on it and a time frame if possible.

For example; don’t just say you want to run further on the treadmill. Say that you want to run for five miles within 15 minutes on the treadmill for five days running.

Doing this means you have no excuse for not achieving this goal and puts a time frame for you to achieve it by alongside your goal, all of this makes it easier to record and see if you have been successful and by how much and also by how much you maybe didn’t achieve it.

Be flexible

If you’re training in the Summer sun and you maybe overdo the exhaustion levels on a particular day, then you have no way of achieving what you want the following day because you’re not at your best. Be flexible with the way you go about trying to achieve your goals, if you aren’t at your best then you won’t achieve the rest. Refocus your energy and make your goals flexible if you aren’t feeling 100% at any point, you can always knock your mileage down to 3 miles or even drop your weight or sets you want to beat. There is absolutely no shame in working with what you have rather than what you don’t have. Don’t overload yourself with an unnecessary workload if you can’t handle it and be sure to adjust where and when you need to. The first lesson of learning is to be flexible with your training needs when you need it. Not doing so will result in a possible overworking of your body and mauve injury so be clever with the flexibility of what you want to achieve.

Be Spontaneous

Everyone who has ever tried to train for a prolonged period of time will know the monotony of the same exercises day on and day out. Even when you are planning your yearly goals there is a tendency to see what you’re writing down and see the same exercise again and again and feel a little disheartened by the same pattern and repetitions. When you have goals set you can sometimes become accustomed to just doing the same thing time and time again because you aren’t aware of how else to achieve what you want or you simply don’t want to try anything new. This is not the way to go.

There are so many forms of training that can help you to achieve your yearly goals and targets that the possibilities are endless! Whether it’s throwing some HIIT training in, trying a new sport, joining a different class or simply adjusting your training methods with new exercises there are so many ways to make sure you don’t become stagnant with your training.

Make sure you are open to trying new ways to train and new ways to improve your conditioning. There are so many ways to achieve what you want to along the years plan that you shouldn’t ever shirk the opportunity to get into a new regime or try new things along the journey. Embrace the change and make sure you are doing ALL you can to get to where you need to be.

Using the tips we’ve shared across the last four weeks there are endless possibilities as to how you plan, record and achieve your years goals. There are so many ways to get to where you want to be and to achieve what you want that if you use your entire arsenal of weapons at hand then you should smash the year and also your targets. Don’t stop at simply beating your goals, reset them and make the next month the best month you’ve had. Be flexible where you can and remember to look after yourself if you aren’t feeling at the top of your game. Remember to always be as specific as possible where you can and try to narrow your vision for the year to make each session the most valuable it can be.