How To Set A Fitness Goal For Beginners
Upon researching “How To Set A Fitness Goal For Beginners”, on page one of Google, an example of a good fitness goal which was number two on their list, to help you live a healthier life by a website called “Life Hack” was, I kid you not,
“Add Some Lemon and Apple Cider Vinegar to Your Water”
Confirming my urgent requirement to get this Blog Post written. When Google allows Apple Cider Vinegar and Lemon as the epitome of fitness goals and health - the world needs to be put to rights.
I got the idea for this article when I was writing the second edition of my book: “27 Ways To Faster Fat Loss”.
There was a section in there all about SMART Goals, and now that I am older, wiser and a little more experienced with Fitness compared to when I first wrote my book, I realised how dumb a SMART Goal is for a Fitness-led goal. This is despite what all Personal Trainers are taught in PT School - and what many personal trainers will tell you.
I think now we need an obligatory pitch: here’s me and my book:
I will give you this book - for free.
But there is a catch. I also want us to become friends. If we become friends, I won’t just send you this book for free, I will also send you a Free Calorie and Macro Calculator, and Two Workout Guides. I might also send you some funny stories from my life, some links to other helpful content that I create and generally some musings from my life.
If you would like to become my friend, then please send me a friend request by filling out the form:
Thank you for becoming my friend.
And now that we are friends let me show you exactly how to set your fitness goals as a beginner for success as opposed to failure - because success is what you want…isn’t it?
Table of Contents for:
How To Set A Fitness Goal For Beginners:
SMART Goals And Why They Won’t Help You
What Do Fitness Goals and The Theory of Acting Have In Common?
How To Set Process-Driven Goals
The Art of a Promise
SMART Goals And Why They Won’t Help You As A Beginner
One of my favourite all-time Joey quotes
If you are unfamiliar with the term SMART Goal then let me take a brief minute to explain them. Developed by a man called George Doran. He was a consultant and former Director of the Washington Water Power Company.
To me, this is a red flag immediately for applying a SMART Goal to a fitness desire - because business and fitness are very different beasts.
SMART stands for:
S - Specific
M - Measurable
A - Achievable
R - Realistic
T - Time-Bound
And let me be clear, I don’t think SMART Goals are wrong or don’t have a place - I just don’t think they are right in a fitness setting, especially for someone new to fitness.
You can look at the acronyms and think - huh - that would make sense for a fitness goal - especially if i am a beginner.
So let’s run it through and set a SMART goal for your fitness goal:
S - To Lose 5kgs
M - I will use the scale to measure my weight loss
A - 5kgs is a realistic amount of weight in the time frame I am setting.
R - I weighed 5kgs less two years ago - I believe I can do it again
T - I want to do this in four months
As you can see - the set goal to lose 5kgs makes sense and seems perfectly fine on the surface.
But SMART Goals do have their critics away from me. One of the biggest criticisms is that they are inflexible and therefore in terms of long-term goals they can be problematic. If you’re new to fitness then the long term is where your mind wants to be.
This is the first issue with SMART Goals in a fitness setting for beginners especially.
Fitness takes time - a lot longer than people will have you believe - and therefore the larger the goal, the more flexibility you will need as you progress through your journey.
One of the other issues I have with SMART Goals, and the bigger sticking point with them in terms of starting your fitness journey is that they set you up to focus on the result a lot more than the process. This can lead you to feel like you are only accomplished or worthy of praise when the result is achieved.
This is problematic because fitness, whether that be performance-based goals, or weight loss goals, is driven by executing a process.
Even if it is your first day or your 4000th day.
In fact, this study [1] emphasises the point of why SMART Goals shouldn’t be set and need to be rethought in the fitness industry, especially when it comes to beginners.
It states that:
“Both goal types are context-dependent and it is now recognised that, in some cases, performance goals can even be detrimental to the achievement of desired outcomes. Consequently, the current practice may be theoretically appropriate for physically active individuals but a different approach (e.g., learning goals) may be preferable for inactive individuals who are new to physical activity (i.e., most of the population).”
So the goal should be about learning, not about achieving. When you focus on just achievement it can be detrimental to achieving your fitness goal.
Now that, to me, sounds like the smartest idea I have heard yet when it comes to goal setting.
What Do Fitness Goals and The Theory of Acting Have In Common?
If you are new here…a quick little bio about me:
Alas, it’s true. I’m a fitness charlatan, a fitness fraud; a downright fake.
I have a Bachelor’s Degree in Acting and actually, it is one of the best blessings I ever had as a fitness professional. I was able to learn movement, the theories and application of fitness and physical work, but understanding human psychology and why people behave the way they do is all down to my career and training as an actor.
If you are interested you can find out all about my acting life here - but that won't help you set a fitness goal as a beginner.
And I apply what I learned about building a character and a role to how to go about setting fitness goals.
Now let me try to break it down as quickly and as succinctly as possible for you.
You may have heard of the Actors Studio in New York. This is one of the meccas of acting in the 20th century responsible for the likes of Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, Marlon Brando, James Dean, Steve McQueen, Mark Rylance, Sally Field, Sidney Poitier and many many more.
They were schooled by a man called “Lee Strasberg” who created the “methodological approach “. This approach hails back to the work of a Russain Director and Actor called Konstantin Stanislavski.
The Drama School in London which I attended, known as The Drama Centre, is also responsible for actors such as Tom Hardy, Colin Firth, Pierce Brosnan, Simon Callow, Emilia Clarke, Alexander Dreymon (who was actually my roommate), Rege-Jean Page and many many more, also schooled us on the workings of Konstantin Stanislavski.
Stan - as we call him in the industry - believed that each and every character in a play has one overarching “Super Objective”
Hamlet wants to avenge his father’s death. Juliet wants to be happily married and create peace between the houses. Richard III wants to be accepted by England and the Court. Prospero wants to be acknowledged as the great man he is. Iago wants to usurp Othello at any cost and get revenge on him because he believes he is the better man.
These are all my interpretations of the situation, and each actor and director will interpret different things from the text.
There is no right or wrong just exploration. Just like in fitness.
But once the Super Objective is set - you then break it down even further - into something called “Actions”.
I would then apply my actions to each scene I appear in - and over time the actions build up and lead to getting closer to my super-objective.
If I was Juliet on the balcony, for the first part of the scene would be “To plan a way to see Romeo again, in order to stay safe and protect my family” then when Romeo appears the action would change to “Collaborate with Romeo to meet safety and to show him how much I loved him, in order to seduce him into marrying me”
Then we can break it down further into an “Activity” which is literally the attitude with which you execute each line to help achieve your “Action” for the scene and this is how you break down a script to create a story and a performance.
As actors, we call it “the process of creating a role”
How To Set Process-Driven Goals?
As I mentioned previously - the SMART Goal focuses you too much on the result.
Whereas setting yourself Objectives and Actions focuses you a lot more on the process - and without a process, you simply won’t achieve your goals.
Let’s run the SMART Scenario from before setting a Super Objective, style goal, for beginners.
Super Objective: To lose 5kgs
Actions: Workout 2x a week, Increase Water, Increase Sleep, Increase Daily Steps, Eat Breakfast every day
Activities: Plan my diary to accommodate the Gym, Buy a water bottle I love drinking from, Stop scrolling on Instagram before bedtime (unless I am catching up on @the_gym_starters page), park further away from work each day, plan my breakfast the night before and protect the time I have to eat it.
Do you see how that throws you into the process of accomplishment and habit creation, whilst also prioritising your health?
Now Let’s Get Fancy…
“In Order To’s” With Your Goals
If you want to get really fancy, and I really recommend this because the more specific you are with your objectives and investigations, the more specific you will be with your actions to execute them, to be fancier, let's add the “In Order To” aspect. Having worked with 100s of beginners to fitness before I am aware that being specific about your process is really helpful.
Super Objective is set as a goal: To lose 5kgs in order to have more self-confidence
Actions:
Workout 2x a week in order to feel strong and powerful which will help my confidence increase,
Increase Water in order to keep hydrated helping me move better, digest better and curb hunger, therefore, helping me create a calorie deficit,
Increase Sleep in order to keep my emotions under control a lot more and to help decrease my stress and therefore my diet should be more aligned to my goals,
Increase Daily Steps in order to increase easily accessible movement will give me more energy as my heart health improves,
Eat Breakfast every day in order to start my day with structure around my food and therefore reduce the likelihood of binging in the evenings and snacking throughout the day
Activities:
Plan my diary to accommodate the Gym in order to be more likely to execute the movement side of my training plan
Buy a water bottle I love drinking from in order to keep up the habit and to try to get closer to my objective of 3L a day
Stop scrolling on Instagram before bedtime in order to help me sleep more restoratively and deeply as well as bring my bedtime forward a little each night - unless, of course, I am reading Adam’s posts…
Park further away from work each day in order to help me increase those little pieces of movement which add up over time and to help me compose myself ready for the next thing I have to execute in my day
Plan my breakfast the night before and protect the time I have to eat it in order to help me create a better relationship with food by spending time with my meals and setting the tone for the rest of the day
Suddenly the word “Goal” takes on a lot more meaning, and the act of setting that goal will have inspired you a lot more.
And you can see why as an actor we would be this meticulous in planning our performances…
And yes, it is a lot more work at the start as a beginner. It does take a little more time and practice of course, but by spending this time in the beginning, you are buying yourself more consistency, and better relationships with exercise and nutrition and you will reach your super-objective a lot more efficiently. Mainly because you won’t be stopping and starting over and over again…you will just execute straight away.
One Last Step: Prioritise Education
Looking at the study [1] I previously spoke about they said this:
“a different approach (e.g., learning goals) may be preferable for inactive individuals who are new to physical activity (i.e., most of the population)”
Which led me to create this:
You have to view your Fitness as your Hobby.
You have to have the same approach to it as you do your Cross Stitch, your baking and your learning to play a musical instrument.
You read books on it, you study the subject, you experiment with things and you learn from as many different people as possible to get better at your hobby.
You have started in a fantastic way, you are here, reading this.
You have got further on this page than most people will have, which means you personally really want to succeed with your objectives. That immediately sets you apart. I am sure you have heard the stat that 95% of Diets fail, although we can debate the validity of this stat, it does reveal something.
Changing your physique is a really hard thing to do, and most people, the vast vast majority of those people who try, don’t succeed. I personally believe that it is because they don’t adopt an educational attitude towards their fitness journey in the beginning.
They don’t develop their own fitness brains enough, they don’t investigate themselves enough, and always remain focused on one thing and one thing only - the end goal - without a worry about what you can learn as you go through the process.
If you want to be in the minority, you have to adopt different behaviours and attitudes to what you do compared to what others have done - and that is the main reason that fitness is so terribly personal to each individual human.
“Everybody is different and every body is different”
Without a doubt the more you personalise your fitness journey and set fitness goals in a process-driven way - as opposed to comparing yourself to what others are doing and the results they are achieving, the more you will learn about yourself and the more your fitness will become a priority for yourself.
Think about the huge world that fitness is, and all that there is to learn within it.
Heck, I have been a Coach for nearly a decade and I keep learning about new things, and different ideas and investigating what fitness means to me on a day-by-day basis.
It’s a treasure trove of learning new skills and discovering new things about oneself in order to keep progressing through life.
One of the reasons I became a coach was because I was sick and tired of feeling like I had stopped learning as a human. I was sitting in my corporate office, doing the same mundane things each and every day…and I was missing a vocation in my life. Coaching has become that vocation and it is a beautiful feeling.
Looking at our goals from above, we can then add a learning outcome to them as well:
Plan my diary to accommodate the Gym in order to be more likely to execute the movement side of my training plan and then I can learn and identify the things in my life that might stop me from being as consistent as I wish.
Buy a water bottle I love drinking from in order to keep up the habit and to try to get closer to my objective of 3L a day and I can learn how much more positive my body feels in the gym and throughout my day when it is hydrated properly and whether or not I enjoy that feeling.
Stop scrolling on Instagram before bedtime (unless I am catching up on @the_gym_starters page) in order to help me sleep more restoratively and deeply as well as bring my bedtime forward a little each night - unless, of course, I am reading Adams posts…so that I can learn how to get the most out of my day and how having that focussed energy that sleep brings me can make my day so much easier to get through.
Park further away from work each day in order to help me increase those little pieces of movement which add up over time and to help me compose myself ready for the next thing I have to execute in my day and I can learn how much better my body feels for these micro-doses of steps and regulated movement
Plan my breakfast the night before and protect the time I have to eat it in order to help me create a better relationship with food by spending time with my meals and setting the tone for the rest of the day so that I can learn and discover how much better my nutrition is throughout the day when I give myself a big win at the start of the day.
As you can see, these learning outcomes refocus you onto the result of your actions as opposed to the result of your “fitness”, and when you start noticing those results that are tied into your process you will be more motivated to continue.
Other topics you can try to learn about when on a fitness journey as a beginner are:
How certain foods make you feel
How to improve your form in your exercises
How to increase your strength
How to protect yourself from Binge Eating episodes
The effect that sleep has on your day
The differences between different exercise setups and why some are more preferred than others
The nuances of a Calorie Deficit
The calories in your food
How your hormones might change the way you feel about training
How to build muscle
How to lose body fat
I could go on and on and on…
And each one will create a rabbit hole you can get lost down and discover so much about yourself as you explore and crucially learn.
The Art Of A Promise
Each week I ask my clients on their Weekly Check-In Forms to set goals for themselves in the context of a weekly promises on their movement and their nutrition.
I state the following:
“The promises you make for yourself are the most important. They are the foundation of your confidence - and should take priority in how you move towards what it is you want for yourself. Focusing on actions over outcomes means you are focusing on what you can control not what you can’t. Promises will be set and split between movement and nutrition - and these are non-negotiable - they are the standards you set for you - and these promises will create actions which will ultimately get you closer to where you want to be”
When you view your goals which you set as a promise to yourself, you are more likely to fully commit to them.
It’s very interesting to me that we are all more than accepting of the idea that we would keep a promise to a friend - and make sure that we did not betray that trust or not keep our word to that person, yet when it comes to ourselves it’s almost normal to let ourselves down.
It’s almost accepted as the default state.
I would like to propose that this is completely inverted.
For if you cannot keep a promise to yourself, how would your friend truly know that they would be able to trust you when you can’t trust yourself?
As Plato said:
““The first and best victory is to conquer self””
and Mahatma Ghandi said:
“Your capacity to keep your vow will depend on the purity of your life”
I know so many people who just cannot keep a promise to themselves, and their confidence has hit rock bottom, they question everything and never feel like they are good enough for themselves - let alone others.
This then leads them to look for validation from others - so they then begin to over-commit to everyone else around them - and they are left with no time to actually set promises for themselves, let alone execute on them too.
I’m sure you can see the vicious cycle that gets created here.
And I am sure you can relate to the people-pleasing nature that occurs in these situations.
If you struggle with your confidence, and if you struggle with people-pleasing, then I have a worksheet for you to fill out in order to start rebuilding that confidence for you. To access it then all you need to do is click on the button below - and it will open up a Google Form for you.
Please feel free to fill it out and start working on yourself in this manner.
Setting promises is an art form, and setting fitness goals for beginners is an art form.
And the more you work on the art, you develop the skill, the more you investigate, the more beautiful the journey becomes.
What’s Next?
I really hope you found this article useful, and that you feel a lot better about setting goals as a beginner in fitness.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read my work, it really does mean a lot to me to have you here.
I also have some other articles you might find useful to help you navigate the early stages of your Fitness Journey:
Added to all of that, don’t forget to add me as your friend, and you can get two workout guides from me, a calorie calculator AND my book: “27 Ways To Faster Fat Loss”
Thank you so much for reading my work and for being here.
References:
Swann C, Rosenbaum S, Lawrence A, Vella SA, McEwan D, Ekkekakis P. Updating goal-setting theory in physical activity promotion: a critical conceptual review. Health Psychol Rev. 2021 Mar;15(1):34-50. doi: 10.1080/17437199.2019.1706616. Epub 2020 Jan 27. PMID: 31900043.