Are your weight loss and fitness goals keeping you from success?
Everything important in life that you hope to accomplish requires you to set goals. Goals provide the motivation to develop a plan and stimulate action. Once you know what it is you hope to achieve you are then able to figure out what it will take for you to get there. To be successful in reaching your goals you must make sure you set realistic, viable goals. Setting goals beyond your capabilities will only lead to disappointment and self recrimination.
Setting realistic and viable goals is the only way you can hope to achieve success. If you set a goal that is impossible for you to accomplish then you are wasting your own time and setting yourself up for failure and disappointment. Take for example a situation where a person has an upcoming high school reunion a mere four weeks away. This person decides she wants to lose 60 pounds before the reunion to impress everyone. Losing 60lbs in four weeks is an impractical goal. Even with ideal circumstances, the possibility would be grim that she could lose this amount of weight in such a short period.
Instead of choosing a goal that would require herculean efforts, choose a goal that is more realistic for your circumstances. Using the example above, that person should break down the amount of weight loss per week that is feasible. If she doesn’t work and can (and will) dedicate two hours a day to exercise, then perhaps fifteen pounds per week isn’t unattainable. But if she works or has other time consuming responsibilities that would interfere with an exercise schedule that grueling, then she should set a more realistic goal. Five to seven pounds a week is an ambitious undertaking. But it is feasible with dedication.
To lose five pounds each week, a person would need to burn more than 17,500 calories each week. High intensity cardio workouts every day, weight lifting at least twice a week and a strict nutritional eating schedule would be necessary. With dedication (and time) this is possible. If you cannot adhere to this type of schedule, than adjust your goals according to a schedule you know you are capable of following. A more modest goal could increase your likelihood of success and prevent disappointment. Failure to attain a goal sometimes leads to self-esteem issues. Setting a realistic goal will prevent you from blaming yourself for failing to accomplish something that just wasn’t feasible within your constraints of time and resources.
