Hi. Phil the Fat Burner here. In this article, I want to talk about goal setting. The three main reasons why I think goal setting is really important is: Firstly, it keeps you focused and undistracted on what you’re looking to achieve. Secondly, it allows you to measure your progress against what you want to achieve. Thirdly, it keeps you motivated working towards what you’re looking to achieve.

With goals, I think it’s a lot more powerful to be writing down your goals rather than just having them in your head. When you write them down, they become real. That means you’re more committed to achieving them.

When I set goals, I like to use the S.M.A.R.T. system. So goals need to be specific, they need to be measurable, they need to be attainable or achievable, they need to be realistic, and they need to be timely.

First, with specific. If we just relate this to fitness or fat loss in particular, if someone says “I just want to lose weight,” that’s not very specific. Rather, you could say “I want to lose 20 kilos.”

Now measurable. This goes back to the first one that we just made. To make it measurable, it’s always good to have a numeric number to it. So it might be “I want to lose 20 kilos,” or “I want to improve my bench press by 20 kilos,” or “I want to drop 10% body fat.” When it’s a measurable goal, it makes it a lot easier to work towards and achieve.

Third one is making sure that it is actually achievable. So saying that “I want to lose 20 kilos in one week” is probably not really achievable, whereas it might be “I want to lose 20 kilos in 12 weeks” makes it a lot more achievable.

With realistic as well. If you’re someone who’s only, say, 60 kilos, and you say “I want to drop 20 kilos,” that’s probably unrealistic. It’s probably not going to happen. Say, if you’re someone who’s 120 kilos, and you say “I want to lose 20 kilos,” that makes it way more realistic to achieve.

The last point is making sure that your goals are timely, so putting a time limit on when you want to achieve your goals. Again, back to the previous examples that I used. “I want to lose 20 kilos in 12 weeks” makes it timely. Or “I want to lose 20 kilos in 6 months.” You have a timeframe of when you want to achieve that goal.

Now, after you’ve set your S.M.A.R.T. goals, the next part that I think is really important that a lot of people don’t do is to write down three reasons why you want to achieve that goal. You go deep down into why it’s really important with you. When you have a reason why, it keeps you a lot more motivated to work towards. You may want to lose 20 kilos to get ready for a holiday. You may want to lose 20 kilos to get ready for a high school reunion. Or you want to lose 20 kilos to get ready for your wedding. These reasons why create way more powerful motivation towards achieving your goals.

The next part into achieving your goals, it goes a bit more into planning out how to achieve them. What I like to do is set bite-sized goals. The things that you’re going to do every week. For example, if you want to lose that 20 kilos in 12 weeks to get ready for your wedding, you would have a list of bite-sized goals that might be something like “I’m going to train five days a week. I’m going to keep a food diary every week. I’m going to do three weight sessions and two cardio sessions for that week. I’m going to cut down and only eat carbohydrates two times a day or one times a day.” Then you have a list of bite-sized goals you’re going to achieve every week. If you achieve those bite-sized goals every week, that’s going to help you work towards achieving your larger goal.

That’s it for this article. Hope you find it helpful in setting goals and working towards achieving your goals.