Effective Goal Setting for Strength Training

New article on Integral Strength Pod discussion from a friend of mine

http://pods.zaadz.com/integralstrength/discussions/view/200845

Your motivation as well as your progress depends in a large part on your ability to set effective goals. If you set goals that are too easy or too difficult you’ll find your desire and motivation wane and sometimes dissapear entirely. Smart effective and thus motivating goals have 5 basic parts - all of which have an important impact on motivation for your training.

Let’s start with the need to set specific goals. Ambiguity isn’t motivating. When you’re pursuing a nebulous cloud, such as “get stronger,” you’re not sure if you’ve arrived at your goal or not. From one perspective, you might have become stronger, but from another you haven’t. This ambiguity in the end dissipates your focus, stunts your motivation and leaves you wandering around often without much aim. Setting specific goals means writing down what you intend to achieve with as much detail as possible. So instead of setting the goal of “getting stronger” you could set the goal to perform 3 specific exercises - say chest press, leg press and seated row, using only these 3 machines at your gym. Then you would want to choose a weight and a number of repetitions that’s challenging for you.

This leads to the second important aspect of smart effective goal setting, your goals need to be measurable. If you can’t measure the goal you’ve set, you need to make it more specific. Having a goal that you can measure your progress towards and ultimately see if you accomplished your goal is critical if you’d like to foster your motivation. If your goal can be objectively measured you can be accurately assessed, evaluated and thus gauged on your progress (or lack there of). So if you set a goal that’s measurable you can have a day of reconing with yourself - you can see - that is objectively measure - did you accomplish your goal?

This day of reconing is the third important aspect of setting highly motivating goals. Your goals need to have a clear deadline. Without a clear ending point, your energy and motivation dissapates. You’ll end up saying to yourself, “well, it will take me a little bit longer to achieve that goal…” It probably won’t be long until you forget about your goal and simply start focusing on something else until you get distracted from that aim. With each day your focus wanders about your motivation is seeping from you like a that slow leak in your bike tire. It won’t be long until you’re standing still wandering what you’re going to do. Giving yourself a clear deadline focuses your mind on the goal at hand. As your mind focuses on the goal your energy and motivation to accomplish what you’ve set out will steadily build leading up to your goal. Instead of tapering off, you’ll begin pursing your goal with more vigor, focus and energy as your deadline approaches - the closer the deadline, the more motivated you’ll become.

The fourth aspect of effective goal setting is being realistic. When you set your goals you’ve got to be realisitic. If you’d like to leg press 500 pounds 12 times by next friday but you’ve never done more than 300 pounds once, you’re setting yourself up for failure. When you choose a goal that’s too hard or right next to impossible you’ll find your motivation to achieve it dissappearing. Similarly if your goal is to leg press 500 pounds 12 times in 3 months, but you can do 500 pounds 8 times right now you’re goal is too easy. If your goal is too easy it isn’t realistic in creating a real challenge. Choosing a goal that is realistic means finding the right challenge - the right tension - to push you, to ignite your motivation to fully engage in to your training with focus and a serious purpose.

Finally, smart effect goal setting needs to be recorded. You can’t have this all living in your head. You must write down your goals being as specific as you can. You’ve got to write down exactly how you’re going to measure your goals and the deadline within which you’ll work diligently to accomplish your goals.

Follow these 5 steps for smart effective goal setting and you’ll find your motivation naturally swell in its power, aim and focus. Along with it, you’ll be swept forward with continual movement forward towards achieving your goals. That doesn’t mean you’re not going to come across setbacks, sticking points and other difficulties; however, these are simply the critical stepping stones from which you’ll stand to take the next step forward towards your goals.

Summary: The 5 Aspects To Effective Goal Setting
1. Be specific.
2. Make your goal measurable.
3. Be realisitic.
4. Give yourself a clear deadline.
5. Record your goals and the path to achieving your goals.