Step 1: Set realistically high goals for yourself

Each week I will elaborate on one of seven steps that I have taken to begin transforming myself into the healthy and fit person that I want to be.  Click here to view the 7 steps (Havi’s 7).

Step 1:  Set realistically high goals for yourself

As you’re determining your goal, be sure that it is a healthy goal.  Talk to a doctor about your personal health as what’s healthy for me or your neighbor might not be healthy for you.  At the very least search online for some information on what is healthy and what isn’t.  WebMD has some great information that you can check out here.  This type of information will also help you determine what is realistic for you.  While it’s important to aim high, setting unattainable goals may hurt your deflate your attitude when you don’t reach them and we don’t want that.

The initial part of starting a goal is easy; envision what you want to look like or what you want to achieve and you’ve got a starting point for your goal.  Use the information that you get from your doctor or other sources and just start by thinking of what you want.  A couple popular starts could be to look good in a bathing suit or to fit into new/old clothes.

Now that we have a basic realistic goal it’s time to examine something called backward design.  This should sound familiar to all my educator friends out there because how we set our personal goals should be similar to the goals we set for our students.  It basically means that you set your desired result and work backwards to figure out how to get there.  We do this by taking the goal you’ve set above and figuring out how it can be measured and achieved.

What we initially began with above is a good start, but we need to further define our goal.  We need to elaborate on the goal by coming up with a concrete way to measure it.  For example, if the clothes you want to fit into have a 34” waist, then we can make our goal to have a 34” waist.  Similarly, we can try to determine measurements that define to you what looking good in a bathing suit means.  In your opinion, figure out what attributes (weight, thighs, hips, arms, etc.) will mean that you look good.  This will allow us to be able to accurately track our progress (step 3).

Now that we have a concrete way to measure our goal, we need to figure out how to get there.  This is where the next step of “educating yourself on yourself” comes in.  In order to best reach your goal you will need to learn about how the human body works and specific attributes or conditions you have that may help or hinder your progress.  So be sure to come back next week as I will scour the internet to find information and resources that will help you achieve your desired goal.