Just how willing are you to work towards your goals?

Lose weight, get fitter, tone up – these are goals written so often, you may have been someone who has also written goals like this or told yourself this on numerous occasions, but just how much weight exactly are we talking here or how much fitter?
Get the message? These goals are a bit too vague so you won’t put your heart and passion into achieving them.

If your 4 stone over weight and want to lose it and get a six pack or get into those size 8-10 jeans but decide that it’s easier to set yourself a 1-2 stone goal or drop to a size 12 because its more realistic, then where’s the drive, passion and motivation going to be? What’s going to make you get up on a morning and eat the healthy food or follow through on your training programme?

A lot of people, myself included are sometimes scared to set themselves a big challenge because of the hard work it will involve. If you’ve hired a Personal Trainer or signed up for a boot camp but aren’t completely sure of your goals you’re not going to have the motivation to follow through on your programme. You’ll probably start to resent the programme because you’ve been advised to follow because you’ve lost sight of that end goal.

When we find ourselves feeling like this we should take a deep think about our goals, don’t just set one or two stone because it’s realistic. If you’re a size 14 and used to be a size 8 and would love to get back into those clothes but have decided that a size 10-12 is much more realistic you’re not actually going to have the same drive. Think about how you felt at a smaller size, how much confidence you had, how well your clothes fitted, if you were happier. Then set that big goal, set yourself a timeframe of how soon you would like to reach that goal then pay the price that is expected to get you there. Every time you are working out and its tough remind yourself of why you’re doing it – that passionate goal and you will push yourself much more.

Did you know that the mind has a very strong influence over our motivation to do things, how many times have you woken up after a poor night’s sleep and told yourself all day how tired you are, or started to get a sniffle and you tell yourself you must be coming down with something then low and behold you suddenly feel at deaths door!

Next time you go to tell yourself you’re too tired or too ill - STOP, by doing this you will cure a lot of your tiredness and illness. When we exercise how easy is it to say it’s too hard or I can’t then not even try, even when we do try, how many of us tell ourselves it’s too hard then fail anyway.

Try being positive with yourself, we have more strength than we realise it’s just some people lose sight of what they really, truly want. If you want to stay happy and healthy in life don’t just go for the quick fix, set yourself that massive goal, work towards it, pat yourself on the back when you get to it then set your next goal – this time you might want to go for sports or improve your running time – whatever it is that will help you maintain that massive goal DO IT.


Think about it as a building being constructed – the plans are made, the end is in sight but it may take several months of hard work to finally get there, then lots of work to maintain it once it’s built - inside and out!

Don’t settle for what you’ve been told is more realistic, other people would rather pull you down to their standards because they’d rather eat crap then complain about being fat when they aren’t prepared to put in the hard work themselves!

Here’s something to make you think!

Thomas Edison was interviewed by a young reporter who boldly asked Mr. Edison if he felt like a failure and if he thought he should just give up by now. Perplexed, Edison replied, "Young man, why would I feel like a failure? And why would I ever give up? I now know definitively over 9,000 ways that an electric light bulb will not work. Success is almost in my grasp." And shortly after that, and over 10,000 attempts, Edison invented the light bulb.

Just think where we’d be if Thomas Edison gave up his light bulb invention after the first few attempts?

You are more powerful than you realise so go! Set that big goal that makes you passionate and begin to love the steps you are taking towards achieving that goal rather than dreading it! Remember there may be hurdles or setbacks along the way but you’ve just got to get back to it again and get to that end goal in sight.

To your Health and Fitness Success