Kinds of Fitness Goals
When it comes to fitness goals, it’s as much about the journey as it is about the destination. And this makes sense because many of the destination oriented fitness goals can’t be achieved after one training session. So, when thinking about your fitness goals, especially if this is new to you, it’s almost better to focus on ‘process goals’ over product goals, which are more likely to motivate long-term adherence to a training program.
Product goals tend to be the kind of goals we can measure ‘after we’ve been through a fitness training process’ of some kind. For instance, product goals include things like a specific amount of weight loss, gains in muscular strength and endurance, increased flexibility, decreased body size (those pants really do fit looser in the waist), decreased blood pressure, decreased resting heart rate, etc. These kind of outcomes come at the end of some kind of fitness training process.
So, while it’s a good idea to set some SMART fitness product goals, I’d consider setting these and then literally setting them aside and instead focus on the daily/weekly/monthly things you’ll do to improve your physical health, your physical process goals. Your process goals are the things you are going to do to get to your end product goal. Of course, process goals will be different for everyone, reflecting your interests, objectives and current fitness level. For example, someone who wants to run a marathon and is starting from a sedentary lifestyle, might start with setting a process goal of walking for 5 minutes/day for one week. Once this is achieved, the process goal is met - YEAH! - and can be evaluated, perhaps the next week is for 10 minutes…and so on.
Keep the process goals simple and easily attainable. You’ll be building a new habit here and you really want to set yourself up for success. At this stage, you might have an idea about your destination but for now, focus on what tiny change you can make on a daily/weekly/monthly basis and focus on making that a habit. Who knows if you’ll run a marathon but you’ll be a lot closer to enjoying a leisurely walk anytime, anywhere.