At the beginning of February, I set a goal for myself which I’ll call my February Fitness Challenge to get at least 30 minutes of continuous physical activity every day during the month of February.
I must report that I’ve failed my goal. But, on the other hand, maybe not.
I want to discuss the multiple purposes of goal setting and how to get the most out of goal setting even if you fail to fully attain the goal. Let me explain.How to Use Goal Setting
The purpose of goal setting is to clearly identify an objective and take steps to accomplish it. If the goal is too easy, it will have little value to achieve it. If the goal is unrealistic, it may not create the proper sense of commitment.
I made a new year’s resolution to get more exercise, and for the first two weeks of January I did OK with that. Then I got busy with other things and two weeks of nothing. That was the motivation to get back on track with a quantifiable goal.
When I set my goal, I knew it was achievable. I could devote 30 minutes a day. And yet, for various reasons, after two weeks I have not been able to do that every day. Why not?
Goal setting, when done properly, is useful in two regards. The proper way is to select a realistic yet challenging goal and clearly define the success criteria. For example, get more exercise is a poor goal because it is not quantified. A detailed daily plan would be the other extreme, but that may be overly restrictive given that live happens and adjustments need to be made.
Yesterday, I got no exercise at all. Here’s why. I worked late. I went out to dinner and the restaurant was busy. I had to wait an extra hour. I ate too much. When I got home, I still planned to do my stretching, but I fell asleep before I did it. As you can see, it was a combination of factors.
But let me tell you this about my goal setting. Over the past two weeks, I did get exercise for 13 consecutive days. That’s more exercise than I’ve gotten in months. On at least half of those days I would have done nothing if not for the goal I had set. So you see my goal has favorably influenced my behavior.
How I view my goal will determine what happens in the remainder of the month. If I say to myself that I still want to track how close I can come to my goal, then the goal is still in place even though I can’t reach 100%. And that is my plan.
Let me close out this discussion with another key point. Goal setting is a great way to assess your priorities. For example, if you set an exercise goal like me and then don’t do it, what did you do instead? Was it because of work commitments? Was it your social life? Was it because of the weather, the TV schedule, or a general attitude? You can assess your priorities by looking back and seeing what you did because that must have carried a higher priority. Once you know, you can either accept that the priority was correct, or make adjustments.
As for today, I am re-committing to exercise at least 30 minutes a day for the rest of the month. I’ll present the results later.
Tags: Fitness, Goal Setting
