6 Critical Steps To Make Your Fitness Goals Successful

Hello friends!

I hope you had a wonderful holiday season and new years!

Of course, what do most people do when new years rolls around? We’ve all been eating a lot of indulgent food, taking time off, probably sitting a lot watching those Christmas movies, and we are primed and ready to make a change.

Ever been there?

I know I have. It’s so frustrating.

Today’s post is probably going to be a little challenging for some of us. You want to make a change. You are tired of not having energy, your clothes not fitting right, not being able to keep up with your kids, and gosh darn it this year you are going to do something about it.

I want you to know you are in a fantastic place mentally. You are so motivated you want to do ALL the things, RIGHT NOW. You’re pumped and planning to hit the gym 6 days a week! Your going to meal prep every single meal avoid all sugar!

  But first, I want you to take a step back for a second, and let’s pause and think about WHEN you are going to do all these things.  

Because that’s the first thing you need to figure out, right? When are you going to make time to exercise, when are you going to have time to meal plan, maybe meal prep, to support your goal of eating right?

If you are freaking out right now panicking asking yourself:

"Oh my goodness, she’s right, WHEN am I going to do this??"

Just breathe for a second and we are going to walk through this together.  

The first critical tip is to EVALUTE. Take a second and evaluate if your health goal is a Non-Negotiable. A non-negotiable is something that is essential to you functioning well as a person.

Full disclosure, I got the term Non-negotiable from another podcaster, she does business coaching and had an episode on how you need to reframe things you really need to get done in your business or life in general as negotiable or non-negotiable.

Anyway, I thought it REALLY pertained well to fitness and I started thinking of my mindset about fitness in that way. Go check out her podcast if you are in the business world, she’s got tons of great stuff-Online Business for Christian Women.

Anyway, back to non-negotiables. An easy example of a non-negotiable could be going to work.

You need money to live, so you have to go to work, end of story. Obviously, there’s exceptions to this, but it’s a simple example that most people can relate to.

You HAVE to make time for this thing in your life because it’s necessary for you to live and function well. Another example is laundry. I mean, it has to get done, right? Eventually anyway? It’s a non-negotiable.

You MAKE TIME for the non-negotiable things in your life. You have to have clean clothes and you make time to do it at some point. It may not get put away the same day but that’s a different issue😂.

I’m going to use exercise as my main health example in this episode because it’s a big one that most people want to get better at, but you could think of getting better sleep, or meal planning regularly, or any really big fitness or health goal in this way.

 You need to ask yourself is: is regular exercise something that is NECESSARY for me to live and function well?

 If you don’t think so, then that’s a different problem. There is tons of research showing that regular exercise is critical for improving your body’s ability to function well, especially as we age, but I don’t think most of you listening actually think exercise isn’t important. Most of us do, which is why its such a popular new years resolution.

So, most of us think regular exercise IS in fact something that is NECESSARY for us to live and function well.

I truly believe the answer is that we don’t actually believe it’s a non-negotiable thing. We have to change that.

Part of the reason is that the consequences of an unhealthy lifestyle take a while to set in, and they can be subtle at first. If you don’t make time to go to work, you don’t get paid. That’s a very quick cause and effect. Health stuff takes longer. Eat fast food every day and in a whole year you gain 15 lbs, that’s a much slower cause and effect.

So what can we do about this?

That’s the next critical step:  I want us to start thinking about our health goals as NON-negotiables in our lives. 

It’s a necessity for us to function and live well. We MAKE time for things that are non-negotiable.

Your body’s health is important!

Often, I think as women, and moms especially, we put other’s needs first over and over to our detriment. And I won’t even say needs, I’ll say wants. We often put others wants ahead of our needs.

I’m not saying to not feed your kids so you have time for the gym. But I am saying to consider what your family or kids can let go of so you can prioritize your health so you be your best for them for as many years as you can.

What I want you to do is start to consider your health goals as a non-negotiable.

Now we can get back to the time piece, the “when” are we going to do this. This is our 3rd step.

Did you see how critical the first steps were first? Because now when you go to write down when you are going to go to the gym or meal plan or whatever, there’s a new level of importance you’ve now placed on your goal so you can now put it in the RIGHT spot in your day instead of just shoving it in where you put the other stuff in your life that are negotiable.

Anyway, back to planning the when. You need to plan when to go. We make time for non-negotiable things in our lives. Have to go to the store for groceries, have to do the laundry, go to work, all that. I want you to pull out your planner or digital calendar, look at a week view, and write down when you are going to work on your health and fitness goals. If you don’t have a planner or use a calendar, then I highly recommend you get one so you can see your week and what your priorities are that week.

For example, if you are reading this, probably weight lifting is a goal for you. If you are completely new to fitness and want to start weightlifting, 2 days a week at the gym is probably a good starting point for you, although if you could do 3 that would get you faster results.

 Try and separate the workouts by a day if you can, if not that’s ok too. If you have a home gym, that’s awesome and you can use that.

Otherwise, for the rest of us we need to figure out when we can go to the gym.

If you have kids at home with you that will be going to the gym with you, take the time to find a gym and has a good kids program. Most of them in my area you can leave your kids for 2 hours in the child care area. I want you to make sure the child care program is good because mom guilt is a killer.

If you feel guilty for leaving your kids somewhere they are just stuck in front of a screen the whole time and your kids are bored the whole time they are going to hate it and so are you. Which will make you not want to go.

So take your time on picking the right gym. Also be sure its within reasonable driving distance from you. Probably no more than 15 minutes honestly to make it sustainable long term.

Once you have the right gym, think about when is a good time for you to go that is prioritizing it.

Do you already feel like you don’t have time for the gym?

Ask yourself why. And then what do you need to say no to, to prioritize it? And the same goes for any other health goal-meal planning for example. Sometimes we are going to have to say no to some things to prioritize other things that we need to do. Our health is a non-negotiable, right? So write on your calendar when those 2 or 3 workouts are going to happen.

The next thing to do is to set up a reminder. This is step number 4.

When we get busy, we can forget to look at our planner, and then next thing you know you completely forgot to go to the gym. This is especially true for any time you are setting up a new habit.

So get a task app on your phone, or set the reminder in your digital calendar, and put “go to the gym” on there and have it remind you thirty minutes before. Do that until you get into the habit of it.

Step 5 is prep before hand. 

If you are working out in the morning, set your gym clothes out and get your water bottle out ready to go, and do it the night before. Use your task app to set a reminder.

If you go to the gym after work, have your stuff packed in the care in the morning before you go.

Basically don’t give your brain an excuse to back out.

The last step is to give yourself grace. 

You aren’t going to make every workout. Kids get sick, crises happen, life happens. Give yourself grace for those moments. And it’s easier to give yourself that grace when you know you have given your best effort at other times.

For example, if I miss a workout, I know that I’ll be ok long term because its rare, most of the time I’m there and I’m working hard.

If my goal is to go twice a week and if I am missing once a week, wellllI… that’s hard to give myself grace because it’s starting to sound more like an excuse because it happens so much.

Just be honest with yourself. And if you find you are honestly giving your best effort and you can’t meet that goal, then you probably need to take a second and re-evaluate your goal.

Is going to the gym 3x a week too much for now? Need to set your goal for 2 so you can actually meet it, then you can up it to 3 later? Just think about that if you are consistently struggling to meet your goals.

So there you have it! 6 critical steps to make your health goals successful.

To recap:

1. Evaluate if your goal is a non-negotiable-and it probably is if it’s a big health goal like regular exercise.

2. Reframe that goal in your mind as a non-negotiable in your life.

3. Plan the time in your week to go and put that in your calendar.

4. Set up a reminder before to remind you to actually do the thing.

5. Prep before hand. If your goal requires some element of preparation beforehand like getting your gym stuff ready or any meal planning prep work like compiling a list of healthy recipes to use that week, then do that prep before so you don’t give yourself an excuse not to do it. 

6. Give yourself grace for when you don’t meet your expectation.

I talked a lot about going to the gym in this as an example, but it also goes for big health goals like meal planning or prepping as well.

This week for your practical takeaway, I want you to plan when you are going to the gym this week if you don’t go yet. Sit down, figure out when you are going to go and follow the steps in this episode to plan it out. You got this!

If you need help with what to do at the gym, get my free routine here.

Happy Lifting!

-Rachel