How do you feel when you are about to start a new fitness or nutrition goal? For many, it feels overwhelming; like a lot of work and more of a chore than anything. I used to feel like that too. I’m not exactly sure when that changed, but I’m glad it did!
In today’s blog I want to discuss goal setting. This is something I find to be fun and challenging….in a good and hopefully positive way. And, I want YOU to change your mindset so you feel the same way.
The reason we find it so overwhelming to start new goals is we think “big.” It’s that “all or nothing”, “go big or go home” mindset. Believe me, I think that applies in some parts of our lives, but not when it comes to making health goals. Why? Because I want you to stick with it. It should be a lifestyle change, not a short term goal. I want you to see that you can do it and not get overwhelmed simply by the thought of it. So how do we do that? By changing our thinking and behaviors.
THINK SMALL! Let’s set small goals that we can build on once we master the smaller goal. I’ll give you 2 examples. The first, of course, is a fitness goal. Let’s say you currently exercise and do strictly bodyweight exercises (no weights), but have a goal to add weights. Well, we automatically think we need to start with 10lbs otherwise we won’t build muscle. Wrong! If I was training you, what I would say is start with 3lb or 5lb weights. That may not seem like a lot, but I promise if you haven’t been using weights, then you will feel it. Once you have confidence in that, then we can move to 8lbs, then 10lbs. This may take a month or two but don’t sweat it!
The second example is nutrition. Let’s say you want to cut back on sugar and add veggies into your diet. What do we think immediately? Cut all sugar and have multiple veggies on day 1. Nope! Let’s say you really like your sugar and one of the things you have is either sugar in your coffee or you drink soda. Cut one of those….don’t do both from the start. Think SMALL steps, and once you stop noticing that didn’t have sugar in your coffee, then move onto cutting soda. And your veggies! We are not going to go from 0 vegetables to 5 in one day! It’s overwhelming. Start with adding one or two in during the course of the day, once you have no problem with that, then move onto 3 or 4.
So you get what I’m saying...I would have continually self sabotaged until this “small steps” thinking came into play for me, that’s why I KNOW it can work for you. My goals have now become almost a game, to see if I can accomplish them within the timeframe I set for myself. And guess what? They are accomplished because they aren’t overwhelming!
Comments