A lot of emphasis is given to goals, and not just with health and fitness, so it has become accepted “best practice” to aim for specific goals. Taken a stage further, goals become the “be all and end all”; the sole focus.
goals are simply route markers
Goals in themselves can be useful things, they can help you stay on track and headed in the right direction. Goals can also boost your motivation, giving a sense of achievement when those goals are met.
How you define goals will vary; some people respond best to specific goals (e.g. run a mile in a certain number of minutes), others find it best if their goals are “fuzzier”. The thing is, no matter how you set your goals, they are simply tools.
Goals are NOT the objective.
there is no final destination
Assuming you’re not a competitive athlete, and are simply wanting to improve your health and fitness (i.e. like me and the majority of us), no single, specific goal is the end-point of your efforts. In fact there is no end-point.
You see, you don’t “get fit” and you don’t “get healthy”. Those terms imply a process where you start out unfit and unhealthy, do some stuff, become fit and healthy, then stop.
That’s where most of us have gone wrong in the past – we achieve results (to varying degrees of success) and then stop.
lifestyle change is the real prize
The real objective of the exercise (pun fully intended) is not to arrive at a certain point, it is (or should be) to make health and fitness a central component of your life.
The “get fit and stop” crew are in the majority, they are the people who are served by the massive health and wellness industry, they are the intended consumers of quick fix diet plans and exercise gadgets.
If, on the other hand, you set about transforming from lardy-arsed couch potato to a fit and active Slim Jim (or Jim-ima lol), you literally change and improve your life.
It’s quite likely that you save your life too – if that doesn’t motivate you, no end of goals will.
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