If you want to succeed you have to set some goals!
When it comes to my health and fitness journey I keep it as honest as possible. I’m not one of those “Do as I say not as I do” type of people, I am the Do As I Do; because I believe someone will only be convinced to try something if they see you actually doing it yourself.
When I started my journey my goal was to lose 10 kilograms in a space of 3 months. Given how unfit I was at the time it was going to be a real mission. I didn’t have enough knowledge of what exactly I was getting myself into. Couple that with having to work out from home on my own it took a very long time to achieve my goal. It took a YEAR to finally lose the 10kgs and it was one of the most interesting year of my life. I went from telling myself I would completely cut out carbs at night, to overeating in the mornings because I would have gone to bed on an empty stomach to doing laundry for an hour and counting it as a workout and then rewarding myself with a huge meal. It was a disaster and I’m surprised I made it out alive!
Fast forward to now I am more informed about fitness. The reason being I read A LOT. I try out some of the things and I get both negative and positive results from my mini experiments. I’ll share a few tips I have learnt about setting goals over the past 5 years and I hope if you try them they will produce the same amazing results.
- Write it down! I live on social media and starting up a blog to document my journey made me feel more accountable and I had to workout because once you put yourself out there people want to see results.
- Don’t make excuses. My very first excuse was I didn’t have money to go subscribe for gym membership but I thought well, I have legs and running is free, let me try that for now and see if I will make any progress from there. 5 years later a hashtag has emerged from my road running ways; #RunWithFitnessBae see how powerful that goal of not making excuses worked out for the best.
- Make realistic goals. My dream was to some day be able to run 10K. Please note I had no “time goal” all I wanted to do was run 10K at an easy and comfortable pace without stopping at all. What worked for me was making small changes each and everyday. There was no way I was going to one day wake up and run 10K in less than an hour on a random day without making small and steady progress. I would run 5K this week, then 5.5K the following week until I eventually got to my 10K dream.
- Don’t stop. You will fall of the wagon not once or twice but several times; don’t be hard on yourself it comes with the journey. I have had days I have said to myself screw this; today I am going to have not a glass but a whole bottle of wine and I don’t even feel bad about it because life is too short! BUT the next day I will get back on the straight and narrow; start anew and keep working on how to better myself not only physically but emotionally as well.
- Be your own hype-man(woman). At the end of the day the reason you get up each day to exercise is for no one else but you. You can read, join WhatsApp Groups, follow health blogs but those can only do so much for you. The real motivator is yourself. Shower yourself with positive affirmations, take before and after pictures, go all out and make noise about your progress because believe me when I tell you that the feel good hormones you get from exercising and from self praise will keep you going for a very long time; trust me, I do this myself.
What are your 2020 fitness goals? Have you come across any obstacles along the way? If yes what have you done to get your mojo back?