To keep focus on what you want to achieve, it would make sense that you would first need a hard and fast idea of what exactly it is that you actually do want to achieve!
These are your goals, or targets. Whatever you prefer to call them, in essence, the meaning remains the same, and they’re going to be what you aim for, and what you try to accomplish within your weight loss.
Basically, any good goal or target has a single purpose: To motivate you.
And there are two ways in which having a target can accomplish this:
- By providing you with a challenge to work towards
- Instilling a sense of accomplishment, and encouragement
Both components are part and parcel of the effectiveness that comes with having some firm, set, goals. But for your goals to really do what you want them to, they’re going to need to be both challenging, but at the same time, realistic.
For instance, if you had a goal to lose 20 lbs. in a day – well that would just be completely unrealistic, and you’d never accomplish it.
On the other hand, if your goal was instead to lose 20 lbs. in a year – that would just be too easy, and you’d have no sense of challenge to accomplish it.
Thus, the perfect type of goal that you’re going to want to set is one that comes somewhere in between. Before you do so though, you should know that there are two general types of targets that you can set, and each has its own special purpose.
Long Term Goals
Anything that is going to take a large span of time could be considered a long-term goal. So, when it comes to weight loss, this may be a yearly or half-yearly goal that you’d like to achieve.
In fact, you probably already have a decent idea of what your long-term goal is already.
Depending on your preference, you could set a hard-and-fast long-term goal that is based on actual figures to your weight loss. Or, if you like, you could even keep your long-term goal as a more general desire to attain a certain look or build.
Of course, it is worth noting that if you add actual figures to your goal, it will give you something a lot more tangible to work towards and challenge yourself while you do so.
Just spend a few minutes thinking about what you really want to attain from your weight loss, and then devise it into a goal. Try to make it something that is truly worth achieving, to you, at least, so that if you do end up hitting your target, you’ll feel that glow of accomplishment.
Do not set long term goals that can really be achieved with little or no effort.
Also, while you’re at it, keep in mind that there is one other type of goal that is going to be intertwined with this long-term goal. Let’s discuss that now…
Short Term Goals
As the name implies, short term goals are the variety of goals that can be achieved over a shorter span of time.
So instead of going by year, or half-year, your short-term goals would probably be weekly, biweekly, or even monthly. Really, the choice of span is up to you at the end of the day, so choose something that you’re comfortable with.
Some people like to constantly have something to measure their performance against, but when it comes to weight loss, weekly results might be slightly unreasonable.
Still, whatever span is chosen, there is one thing about short term goals that really does tie into the long-term goals that we just discussed. And this is nothing other than the fact that your short-term goals should be geared towards hitting your long-term goal.
Think of it this way: If your long-term goal was to lose 30 lbs. in 6 months, then your short-term goals could be to lose 5 lbs. for each month.
That way, each of your short-term goals would be working towards the actual achievement of that bigger, and much more appealing, long-term goal!
Setting up your short-term goals in this structure is very necessary. Not only will it help your achievement of your final goal, but it will also provide you with a valuable progress gauge so that you constantly know how well you’re doing as you try to achieve that target.
Remember though, all the other rules of goals and targets that we’ve discussed so far still apply, so make your short-term goals realistic, but not too easy to accomplish either!
Once you’ve done all of this, you should have a nice set of short-term goals, all working towards that final target (the long-term goal!). If you have already started to set up your goals and targets, congratulations, you’re well on your way.
But if you haven’t, then take a minute to at least think about them, because having even the roughest of ideas is going to help you with everything you do.
Before we finish off our discussion of goals and targets, it is important that you know how exactly you can use them to your best advantage. Yes, it isn’t enough to just have a list of goals that you occasionally check against.
Ideally, your goals should be helping you a lot more than that!
Working With Goals and Targets that Motivate and Propel Action
Remember that every goal and target that you set is really designed to motivate you. Motivate you to do what? Well, act, of course!
Through the encouragement and sense of accomplishment, as well as the challenge of hitting targets, this can be achieved with ease. But the question is, what happens if you don’t hit a goal?
Most importantly, there’s no point sulking about it. Instead, every time you pass a certain milestone, you should evaluate how well you did.
Even for targets that you did manage to hit, it would not be amiss to still carry out an evaluation of everything that you did to achieve it. By doing this, you’ll be able to identify areas that can be improved on.
In a nutshell, the purpose of your evaluation is to identify what worked and what didn’t.
After that, if you did fail to hit one of your targets, you have a choice. Based on your evaluation, you need to decide whether you feel that you can realistically hit the next target.
If you feel you can, great. But if you don’t, then you should seriously consider re-tweaking your goals so that they’re still realistic.
Put in another way: Failing to hit one goal is not the end of the world. What matters is that you learn from it, and improve on both your methods, as well as your goals themselves.
By adopting this type of philosophy towards goals and targets, you’ll be able to improve on many aspects of your weight loss at once. Best of all, you’ll also do so in a way that keeps you on your toes, and motivated to get out there and achieve more!
Incidentally, it is worth noting that the opposite of this situation applies as well.
As you identify weaknesses and improve on them, you’re going to undoubtedly find that you’re able to hit your targets more easily. And if they become too easy, then they’re not going to be challenging enough to be targets worth hitting!
Thus, if you feel that you can accomplish more, then it would be wise to scale your targets upwards.
Keep at it constantly, and you’ll go much further than you possibly even imagined. Acquiring and adhering to the right sort of goals and targets is something that truly is powerful.
Once you have reached your target weight, you’ll want to know how to maintain it, so you don’t put all that hard work to waste! Educating yourself ahead of time will help you when you are at the point where you have attained your weight loss goal. You wouldn’t want to ruin the celebration you will want to have, and you of course want to continue with your newfound healthy lifestyle.
The foundation of the Absolutely Thin Medical Weight Loss Program is based on personalized solutions that consider individual needs and goals. It involves a combination of medication, eating right, behavioral adjustment, exercise, and ongoing support to help our patients lose weight effectively and safely.