Are You on Track with Your Fitness Goals?

If you find yourself several months out from the New Year with waning enthusiasm and effort toward your intended fitness goals, I’m sure you’re not alone. Energy, novelty, and the initial excitement can fade due to life stressors, dwindling interest, and the simple principle of time.

It might be time to take stock and reestablish your fitness goals. You might not need an overhaul, but you could use a tune-up.

Stop and see where you stand

I’m willing to bet you’re not in as bad of a spot as you think. Maybe your workouts have been sporadic with several bouts of missed trips to the gym due to family obligations, overtime at work, or burnout.

It’s nothing to stress about. I’m sure you’re still in better shape than when you started at the beginning of the year. Maybe you’re not exactly where you want to be, but better than before.

Stop, take stock, and get into the mindset of moving forward and improving on what you’ve built. At this site, I like to focus on reshaping your physique with weight training, sensible dieting, and sustainable motivation and that’s what we’re going to do.

Look back and see where you came from

Next, let’s take a quick look back and evaluate what worked, what didn’t, and what exactly derailed your best efforts. Maybe you went through a phase of more workload at your job, a busier than usual schedule with your kids, or simply lost the motivation and drive to keep pushing in the gym.

Whatever your triggers, identify these factors and then look at how you can mitigate these roadblocks and make your efforts more efficient. At the same time, look at what worked, take mental notes, and plan to use what worked for future use.

Reevaluate where you want to go

Take the 10,000-foot view and reevaluate what you’re doing all this for. Getting up in the morning, putting on your training shoes, showing up at the gym, putting in the effort, and repeating it daily will only be effective if you have a clear vision of where you want to go.

Redefine your goal. Be specific. For example, turn “I want to get in better shape” into “I want to gain 10 pounds of muscle over the next three months by weight training four times per week at one hour each session.”

Get detailed. The more specific you get, the easier it will be to formulate your action plan. Which brings us to the next step.

Make a sensible, sustainable plan to move forward

Once you’ve established a good sense of where you’ve been and set a more specific and detailed goal, it’s time to create a more effective plan of action that will align with your schedule and unique lifestyle.

The important thing here is to create a plan that can realistically fit into your week. Avoid following lofty programs that may have you going to the gym six days per week and over an hour each day. Create something that fits your schedule. Do you have only 40 minutes to dedicate, three days per week? So be it.

In a future post, I’ll break down how you can fit a great muscle-building routine into almost any schedule.

Happy lifting!