Hi Transformer’s!

With the New Year only a couple of days away, I thought what better topic to discuss then goal setting! No doubt there will be millions upon millions of New Year’s resolution being thought up and hopefully implemented once that date ticks over, but how much time and thought do people actually put in to coming up with their resolutions? Is it the same every year, and never gets achieved? Do they even really WANT to achieve it? This is why it is extremely important to actually take the time to sit and write down what your goals are, and WHY you want to achieve them.

You most likely have heard of this or read about it before, but goals should always be “S.M.A.R.T.” This stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely. You want to make sure that you know exactly what it is you want to achieve, why you want to achieve it and precisely when you want to achieve it by. When you have those things, then you want to make sure that you can measure you goal to track progress, and more importantly, ensure that your goal can be achieved in the time frame you have set. This is the general rule of goal setting, but I am going to elaborate on this, and touch on a few other things as well which should really help.

First of all I want to talk about the “3×5 System”. This is simply a 3×5 index card that you are going to write your goal down on and keep it with you at all times. Whether it be in your wallet/purse, bag or in your phone cover, wherever you can fit it that you can take with you wherever you go. Make multiple copies and place them in areas of the house or at work, wherever you are going to see it in front of you on a regular basis. On your computer monitor, bathroom mirror, on your car dashboard, on your fridge, it doesn’t matter specifically, just as long as you will see it often. You are going to read this card out loud to yourself every day, a few times a day. However it isn’t just enough to have the goal down on a card, you want it written down as a positive affirmation. So instead of writing down ‘I want to lose 5kg’, you will write ‘I WILL be (weight minus 5kg) by x date’. So you aren’t even just writing down that you will lose 5kg, but you will take it that one step further by specifically writing the weight that you will be. So essentially you want to see into the future and know that with your hard work and discipline you will achieve that goal. Then you can take it another step further and write the goal as you have already achieved it, and insert feelings and emotions into it as well. ‘I am a fit, confident, happy (x amount of weight) as of (x date) and I feel amazing!’ The greater detail you go into with your goal, and the more you tell it to yourself and start to believe it, the more you will become the person you want to be. This goes into visual imagery which I will talk about in a moment.

Now all good goal setting should always start from the same point for everyone, regardless of what it is, and that is WHY? Every goal should always begin with why. Why do you want to achieve that goal? So it is important that you discover the why from the beginning, to break through the barriers to reveal what is the internal motivation for the goal. People will often say they want to lose weight or get fit, and when you ask why they don’t even really have an answer. They haven’t broken down the barriers for themselves to get to the core of the issue. Beginning with why will be the greatest internal motivation you will ever have, but it might take a bit to open up to get to what it is. When thinking about your goal, ask yourself five times ‘why’ and see if you come up with a little bit more each time. For example; ‘I want to lose weight’ – why – ‘because I want to look better’ – why – ‘because I want to feel better about myself’ – why – ‘because I have low self-esteem’ – why – ‘because I am not happy with the way I look and I get embarrassed in public, I want to be able to wear nice clothes and feel confident about myself’. Now you could probably go even deeper into that why, but you can see how just from writing I want to lose weight, you really haven’t addressed the core reason, and therefore haven’t created enough of an internal motivator. So just remember to that it doesn’t really matter what the reason is, as long as the WHY means enough to you to motivate you to achieve it.

Another important aspect of goal setting is having some foresight, creating a clear path to success. What challenges or obstacles are you going to have to overcome in the time frame of when you want to achieve your goal by? If we use the 12 week transformation challenge coming up as an example. January 5^th – March 28^th. What events are going to take place during that time that are going to potentially be obstacles to overcome. Do you have birthday parties, holidays, anniversaries; anything that you feel is going to need some pre-planning to overcome to keep you on track. You might need to research places you can exercise if you are away, does your hotel have a gym, or is there a park nearby? You might need to research the restaurant your friend’s birthday is at. What healthier alternatives are on the menu? Do they offer salads/vegetables as a side instead of chips? With events like holidays/weddings etc. where you expect to have a few drinks or eat some cake or whatever the negative is going to be, it’s important that you plan to fail. Give yourself permission to enjoy yourself, whilst still being responsible and limiting the overall damage. Planning to only have 3-4 drinks for the night as opposed to 12 can be the difference to your results. Having a small piece of cake isn’t going to completely throw your results out the window, but as long as you plan for this. When you don’t plan for things, especially if you are “on a diet”, you tend to feel guilty afterwards. You attend the party saying you aren’t going to have a single drink, you end up having ten and then later think ‘what have I done!?’ This in turn can have a snowball affect also, because then you might think, ‘well I’ve stuffed today up, it doesn’t matter what I eat now’. However, if you have planned to fail, you can still enjoy yourself and get back on track the following day. So make sure you have a plan in place.

Visual Imagery is the last component of goal setting I am going to mention today. This could be a photo of yourself when you were your ideal weight that you want to get back to. It could also be a picture of someone that you would like to look like. Maybe they have the ideal body that you want so you use that picture for motivation. It isn’t just about having a picture though, you want to start to visualise yourself with that ideal body. So if you go back to your 3×5 system with the index card and you are reading your positive affirmation out loud, you want to start to visualise that image of yourself having already achieved your goal.  When you read a book or when someone tells you a story, you will usually tend to create an image in your head of what that would look like. With goal setting, you want to create that image in your head, and start to become that image, through your actions. If you want to be lean, imagine yourself as already being lean, start to think of yourself in that way, and through visual imagery you actions will follow. This can be a very powerful tool in achieving a goal, and this comes back to changing your mind set and creating good habits instead of bad habits. It can all stem from that one visual image.

I hope this has helped and now you can come up with a REAL New Year’s resolution. One that is important to you that you are going to stick to. I hope everyone has a fantastic New Year’s and I’ll be back next week for the first blog post of 2015! 😀