There Is No Goal
Takeaway Points:
Goal setting has become a cornerstone in fitness, but often newer or inexperienced exercisers set unrealistic goals, especially in the short term, which can easily demotivate them when they’re not achieved.
It can be more helpful to have a trainer or more experienced exerciser help with managing goals if it’s really important for you to make them. They will have a better idea of what’s achievable in what kind of time period, as well as support you mentally when there are hiccups.
You could also avoid setting goals all together! Focus on making consistent and steady progress by continuing to exercise. All of the progress you make will be positive without the burden of a specific goal hanging over your head.
(Note: This is an updated version of an article originally published on 6/2/15. It has been expanded slightly for clarity, and updated for modern formatting standards.)
We hear a lot about goal setting in health and fitness. It is generally believed, that proper goal setting is an important key to success.
In particular, most professionals are taught the SMART system: that goals should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant (to one’s fitness goals), and Timely (that is, having set time limits on completion).
We are also told that we should set both short and long term goals. Short term goals should be relatively easy to attain (ie, lose 2 lbs in 2 weeks) and should ensure that you’re on track to achieving your longer term goals in the time you’ve set. If you begin to see a trend of your short term goals no longer falling into place, then you know that you’re off track for your longer term goals as well.
Long term goals should be centered around bigger changes (ie, I want to lose 40 lbs) and can also be centered around athletic events (ie, I want to place in a certain bodybuilding competition). Long term goals can provide structure for our short term goals: for example, a specific bodybuilding competition necessitates bulking and cutting phases in the shorter term, and a powerlifting meet necessitates a carefully periodized program to ensure the athlete is at their peak condition in the days leading up to that meet. These goals provide structure to the short term goals, and ensure that we don’t keep setting wildly different goals every twenty minutes, resulting in no progress.
Why that’s wrong.
Many times, over the years, I’ve had clients come to me, frustrated by the fact that they feel that they can’t adequately set goals. They don’t have specific short term goals in mind, and their long term goals are often vague - “build more muscle”, “feel better in my body” and so on. Often, they feel some level of shame or discomfort because they perceive that this is not a “good enough” kind of goal.
But the reality is that the science of goal setting is not so concrete and settled.
SMART goals as mentioned above, are basically just a fashionable business development that caught on in the 80’s - there’s not necessarily any evidence that they actually work. SMART goal setting might make sense in a business context where you need to be able to easily evaluate whether or not workers are accomplishing what they say they will - but probably less useful when it comes to personal goal setting.
Likewise, a big issue a lot of people have, is simply that they don’t know how to set effective goals, simply because they’re beginners. Beginners don’t know what a realistic goal is, because they don’t understand how quickly it’s possible to build muscle, or lose weight, or get stronger. Accordingly, beginners often set unrealistic goals that are far too aggressive, then these goals become an active hindrance when they try to hold themselves to them.
As a result, many people actively set goals that demotivate, rather than motivating themselves.
What’s the solution?
The easiest solution, of course, is to gain more experience. When you get more experience, you become better at setting realistic goals. But this is slow, and takes time and trial and error. So, “easy” might be a misnomer.
The next best solution, is to hire a coach. A good coach or trainer can guide you in setting more realistic goals, and help you troubleshoot when you aren’t making progress. This can make it a lot easier to set motivating goals.
However, the secret is that in the end, there should be no goal.
When you set yourself on a long term goal, the general approach should always be to continue to make some kind of progress, any kind of progress towards that goal, and continually adjust and refine your approach based on your actual results over time.
For me, this rarely means setting actual “goals” in the short term. I do not generally plan in anything less than 3-6 months ahead. Sometimes, I plan training phases that go for years at a time. Often, this is more than enough to provide the necessary guidance, while ensuring that I don’t get too bogged down in the details.
I apply a lot of the same to my own clients, and often warn them against trying to set short term goals at all, or to plan in smaller time spans of a month or two. Realistically, when you plan too short term, even a single bad training week will completely derail you, but if you’re planning months and years in advance, one week will have no practical effect.
In the end, there really is no goal: there are only the results we see from exercise and our will to do more. This means that our goals should really be just that: continuing to exercise, continuing to see results, whatever our path. All goals boil down to one basic axiom: exercise!
Go out and do it.
About Adam Fisher
Adam is an experienced fitness coach and blogger who's been blogging and coaching since 2012, and lifting since 2006. He's written for numerous major health publications, including Personal Trainer Development Center, T-Nation, Bodybuilding.com, Fitocracy, and Juggernaut Training Systems.
During that time he has coached thousands of individuals of all levels of fitness, including competitive powerlifters and older exercisers regaining the strength to walk up a flight of stairs. His own training revolves around bodybuilding and powerlifting, in which he’s competed.
Adam writes about fitness, health, science, philosophy, personal finance, self-improvement, productivity, the good life, and everything else that interests him. When he's not writing or lifting, he's usually hanging out with his cats or feeding his video game addiction.
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