10 Tips for Setting and Achieving Fitness goals, Part 2 (tips 5-10)

We are picking up where we left off last week in our talk about fitness goals with tips 5-10 coming at you!

Table of Contents

• Process Goals vs. Event Goals

• Be Flexible

• Shift Your Identity

• Track Your Progress

• Celebrating the Small Victories

• Avoid Time Limits

  • Ben’s Best

  • Weekly Action Points

5. Set Process Goals Instead of Event Goals

Process goals focus on the actions and behaviors you need to do consistently to reach your goal, rather than focusing your efforts solely on the outcome. For example, instead of a goal to lose 10 pounds (event), maybe you could make a goal to exercise three times each week (process).

Setting process goals allows you to increase your confidence and motivation making it more likely that you stick to them in the long term.

Using the example I just gave, if your goal is to exercise three times a week and you actually do it successfully, you can feel accomplished for achieving your goal. On the other hand if your goal was losing 10 pounds in two months, but you only lost 8, you will feel like you failed causing a negative view of the goal. When you feel defeated, you are more likely to give up.

By staying motivated and consistent with the process, you ultimately will make greater progress towards an event that you are trying to reach. Focus on the process first and the event will come as a result.

6. Be Flexible

Be open to adjusting your goals and plans based on how your body is responding, changing life circumstances, or unexpected challenges. Try new things and experiment with different ways you can do something.

If you’re reading this newsletter, my hope is that you are in it for the long haul trying to make changes for a better, happier life. And we know that shit happens in life that we aren’t expecting.

Being flexible allows you to navigate obstacles and setbacks without giving up on your fitness goals. Trying to strictly follow a rigid plan is likely to lead to frustration and burnout, and ultimately, quitting.

Be willing to make changes as you go so that you can continue making progress in the right direction no matter what’s thrown in your direction.

7. Shift Your Identity

You need to identify as someone who lives a healthy lifestyle in order to be successful in the long term. It’s about seeing yourself as a fit, healthy, and active individual as opposed to someone who is trying to change to become these things.

You get to identify however you want, and there’s a powerful difference between saying “I am healthy” vs “I want to be healthy”. Choose the characteristics you want to identify with, and then make actions each day that prove your identity.

If you are a healthy person, what would a healthy person eat for breakfast? As a healthy person, how would I approach exercise? Would eating that entire chocolate cake align with how I identify as a person?

Your identity shapes your actions and behaviors. Without changing your identity, you will always just be someone who is “wanting” to be healthier.

Someone “wanting” to be healthier might hate going to the gym, despise healthy food choices, and not see lasting results. A person who IS healthy will find joy and energy in their workouts, fulfillment in healthy foods, and have results that keep improving their whole life. It’s a fundamental difference in your perception about what you are vs what you want to be.

If you don’t adopt the mindset of what you are trying to become, you will never get there.

Instead of telling yourself “I’m trying to be better about getting to the gym”, tell yourself “I’m the type of person who goes to the gym five times per week."

Making good decisions for your health then simply becomes a part of who you are as a person.

8. Track Your Progress (correctly)

When you are in the long game, you need to find ways to track your progress so that you can reassure yourself you are moving in the right direction. Some examples of how you could track your progress:

• Taking progress photos/videos at regular intervals

• Making a tally on a notepad for each workout that you complete

• Keeping a log of how much weight you lifted or how far you were able to run

• Taking anthropometric (a big world that basically means body proportion) measurements such as weight or waist/hip/bicep circumference

My disclaimer about taking photos or measurements: You really should not be doing this more frequently than one time per month. You won’t be able to see much change on a week to week basis, so taking photos each week (or worse every day) can be extremely discouraging. The absolute minimum should be one month between photos. For me personally, I take photos about every three months.

Tracking your progress in some way is helpful for you to see how far you’ve come and make informed decisions about your fitness regimen. It allows you to make changes if something isn’t working or continue with something if it is. It also allows you to celebrate as you go, which leads me to my next point.

9. Celebrate All The Small Victories

Acknowledge and reward yourself for all the progress you made, no matter how small it might seem. If your goal is weight loss and you lost 0.1 lbs, fantastic you are moving in the right direction! If your goal is building strength and you are able to do one extra rep than you used to, awesome!

Whatever it is and no matter how small it is, celebrate all the victories you have! My important note here is when I say “reward yourself” I don’t mean gorge on the unhealthiest food you can find.

You could reward yourself with a self-care activity such as a massage or spa day. Or maybe you have a social reward where you plan something fun with friends that you wouldn’t usually do. Reward yourself in a positive way, not one that sabotages the small victory that you are celebrating.

Even just simply acknowledging a victory and telling yourself “hey, I’m doing great” has huge benefits. Being aware of improvements boosts confidence, motivation, and morale, making it easier to stay committed to your goals.

It creates a sense of accomplishment and allows you to keep pushing forward even when faced with adversity.

10. Avoid Time Limits

I know this goal might be a little surprising to people. I feel like so many people have heard of S.M.A.R.T goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timely that emphasize the importance of having a timeframe on your goals.

But I really believe that setting a time frame on your fitness goals is not very productive. Your timeline should be improving your fitness until you die, not being really good about your fitness for three months.

By not setting a timeline on your goals, you can set out for constant, continuous improvement instead of quitting on your fitness goals when your timeframe is up.

Ben’s Best

Looking for a book to read related to fitness?

• Best book to read while getting started in fitness: Atomic Habits by James Clear (ad)

  • This book is one of the top books on Amazon with over 15 million copies sold for a reason: it’s absolutely fantastic. Not just for fitness goals, but life in general. If you haven’t read this book yet, I would say it’s an absolute must read to help you towards your goals.

Meal prep for the week:

• Chicken and potato wedges with roasted carrots: One of my go to meal preps.

  • I used a combination of chicken breast and chicken thighs that I grill.

  • Cut russet potatoes into wedges and roast at 425 F for 45 minutes, flipping halfway through.

  • Throw the carrots in the oven at the halfway point when you flip the potatoes.

  • Season the chicken and potatoes with whatever you want, I used garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, salt, and pepper. I put some franks red hot buffalo on when before I heat it up in the microwave.

• Dessert for the Week: Peanut Butter Oat Cups that were SOOO good. I’ve got a sweet tooth that I need to satisfy in healthy ways, and these have awesome, simple ingredients.

My favorite podcasts from this week:

• The Diary of a CEO with Steven Bartlett - Ozempic Expert: Ozempic Increases This Disease By a Factor of 9! They’re Lying to you about Ozempic side effects & What it’s doing to our brains -Johann Hari

• The Tim Ferris Show: #722 Cal Newport - How to Embrace Slow Productivity, Build a Deep Life, Achieve Mastery, and Defend Your Time

Weekly Action Points

• We are going to expand on the five goals we wrote down last week. If you didn’t write down goals last week and need a refresher, see last week’s newsletter here.

  • Based on the five goals you made last week, are there any changes you want to make based on the information you learned this week?

  • Once you have your five goals, I want you to write down a “why statement” for each one. Why do you care about achieving this goal? What benefit will achieving this goal bring to your life? Actually write these down because it forces your brain to be aware of what you are thinking

1. Text your five goals to two people. Only rule: the person you text can’t be your significant other. You (hopefully) interact with this person a ton already, so I want you to tell two other people. Just letting other people know what you are trying to achieve helps hold you accountable. Bonus points if you tell them it’s something you are doing for the Fundamental Fitness newsletter and send them a link to subscribe so that they can do it with you!! :)

2. Put your written out goals somewhere you can easily see them right away in the morning. Maybe you post them on your nightstand or tape them next to your bathroom mirror. Maybe you take a screenshot of them and make it the screensaver on your phone.

   Here is what you are going to do: every single morning when you wake up, say these five goals out loud to yourself. This makes it so your goals are the very first thing on your mind for the day. It might sound stupid, but this is a huge way to guarantee you actually make progress towards your goals that day.

   Exercise goal for the week: the last two weeks we were going for daily walks. This week, we are going to go for walks every other day that are twice as long. So last week you had daily 6 minute walks, this week we are going are going to do a 12 minute walk every other day. Same total walking duration.

   • Again: this has to be intentional time set aside for going on a walk, NOT just standard every day activity

That’s all I have for you guys this week. Here’s to another fantastic week ahead, let’s crush this whole goal setting thing! Next week we will talk about simplifying fitness by finding things to cut out from your life instead of looking for more to add in.

Have a great week!

Ben

Share this newsletter with someone who could benefit from some simple fitness information! I’m trying to help make fitness accessible to as many people as possible!