Goals

Goals

Having been a competitive athlete and successful professional for a number of years, goal setting and goal achievement is nothing new to me. However, this year I had found myself somewhat wandering in my goals and accomplishments.
Why did this happen? Could it happen to you? How can it be prevented?

I’ll try to keep this topic on the focus of health, fitness, and athletics since that’s what K2 Fitness Solutions Inc is about.

I think we all reach a “comfort level.” A level of performance where we are very good at something but, know in the back of our mind we could be better. What’s stopping us? Perhaps it’s the lack of drive, or maybe the dread we picture knowing that as we continue to reach higher levels, each level beyond that will require MUCH more work with smaller and smaller gains; the law of diminishing return. Yet as we reach closer and closer to that level, we can have comfort in the fact that we are approaching the very best level of performance we can possibly reach.

Each year I ALWAYS have some general goals; such as “I want to be even stronger and faster this year,” or “I want to throw farther.” These are not really goals but, desires. Now laying out goals of; “I will have a Power Clean of 385 by X date,” or “my max raw squat this year will be 710,” or I will throw the 56# 40 feet by Oct.” Those are all examples of specific goals,

What makes the difference? A goal involves establishing specific, measurable and time targeted objectives. In fact there are 6 areas that must be addressed to have an effective goal.
1) It must be written.
2) It must be challenging.
3) It must be believable
4) It must be specific
5) It must be measurable
6) It must have a specific deadline.

It is also worth mentioning that, especially in the filed of athletics or strength & conditioning, we need to have focus in our goals. By this I mean that it isn’t practical to set a goal of say gaining 15 pounds of muscle in one year, while simultaneously losing 35 pounds of fat, particularly in an already well-trained individual. Or to “take my max squat from 530 to 680 in 8 months AND lower my 40 time from a 4.9 to a 4.5.
If we are setting multiple goals those goals need to be complimentary, or make one a short-term goal (6 months to 1 year) while the other is a long-term goal (2 years or more)

When we are establishing goals, make sure that the goal(s) are something important to you and your endeavourers. A goal HAS to be something meaningful to you, done for you. If not, you will not be able to maintain the required focus and your goal will fail.

Don’t allow yourself to become discouraged if your progress isn’t where you’d like it to be. Be sure to break down your goals into smaller pieces, evaluate on a regular basis and make adjustments as necessary.