Plan for Goals Instead of Just Setting Them
goals, planning
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New Year's Resolutions are becoming a joke nowadays. People set them knowing they're not going to keep them. This is sad because January is a great time to get started. Many of us are budgeting for the coming year so we can include fitness costs in our planning. Prices on gym clothes and equipment are often low. Gyms are competing for your business. And there isn't a big eating holiday for almost 4 months. So, it is a good time to plan for your fitness goals of the coming year.
But you will need more than a resolution to succeed, you will need goals and a plan to achieve those goals. Resolutions tend to be vague. We say things like "This year I will get into shape" or "This year I'll lose weight." Those are so vague as to be practically useless. Neither of them address specific behaviors and how you are going to change them. That's why you need behaviorally-driven goals and action plans to support them.
Here's an example:
This year I will work toward a schedule where I will increase my aerobic exercise to three hours a week and my strength training to two hours a week. To do this I will need to do the following:
- Join a gym and make an appointment with a trainer to set up a safe and effective way to do this.
- Register for an aerobics class at our local community center.
- Create a schedule of days and times to work out and enter them into my day planner for the next three months.
- Begin this week with 15 minute work out sessions and increase the time and intensity of my workouts by about 10 percent a week until I reach my goal
That is just an example, but my point is that it's easy to make the new years resolution. But you should take that extra step and actually MAKE A PLAN on how to keep your new years resolution.
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on 1/22/2008
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