Need help with goal creation?

[spezzy]

I hope everyone's starting to think about what they want to accomplish in the next 28 day challenge that starts March 7th!

So. Are you having troubles with coming up with good goals?

Or already have an idea of what you want to do but not sure if it would make a good goal/how to make it a goal?

Or just want feedback on what you've come up with so far?

Post what you've come up with so far and we'll give feedback/ideas

[spezzy]

oh, and ps: the amazing goal creation thread dantes made is here:

http://nerdfitness.com/community/showthread.php?1406-Goal-Setting-A-Quick-How-To

[rdwagner]

Quick question, experienced challengers:

You often have 3-5 goals that are very different. It seems so well-rounded. What catagories do you use to pick your goals?

[spezzy]

I personally look at my long term goals and then pick short term goals that will help me achieve those. In order to achieve one thing you very often have to work on many different areas.

For example, I know that I'd like to be able to deadlift 350lbs at some point this year. In order to do that, I need to get stronger, but I'm also going to need to sleep, eat proper, and improve my flexibility. So I set goals in those categories. I had set a running goal for the last two months and failed it. Why? It had nothing to do with my long term goals, so I had nothing motivating me to do it.

If you wanted to get really good at basketball, you'd probably want to work more on speed and agility.

Weightloss would be a combination of cardiovascular endurance/strength/diet.

Here are some general categories:

Fitness:

Cardiovascular endurance (running)

Speed (sprinting!)

Strength

Flexibility

Balance

Agility

Accuracy

Coordination

Health:

Diet

Hydration

Sleep

Meditation

General Movement and other Activities (hiking, climbing, archery, hulahoop) - (thanks alethea )

Life:

Financial

Job

Adventure/Travel

Organization/Decluttering

Social/Family

Creativity

Education

Generating routine habits

Charity

Spiritual

I think that answers what you were asking. If it doesn't, let me know, and I'll try again

[rdwagner]

No that is perfect, spezzy, thanks!

So my long term goals are pretty general. Learn spanish, keep within my budget, put away a bit in savings, be healthy (wow is that super vague or what!), and become strong enough to start doing parkour (or rock climbing).

So I started in December with a goal to lose 25 pounds. To do this I switched up my diet dramatically. I have stuck with the diet for 2+ months now. I've started some body weight strength training 2-3 times a week and Tae Kwon Do 1 time a week. This week, I decided to walk stairs at work. I have stopped worrying about the weight as a specific number, and I just want to get stronger and become tone (lower my body fat %?).

So here it goes, please feel free to give feedback:

1) Continue strength training 3 times a week, only missing one workout during the challenge (this gives me flexibility with the chaos of kids)

2) Make it to Tae Kwon Do once a week

3) Do spanish lessons (Rosetta stone) for 30 mins twice a week.

4) Stick with 80% no "white" carb for entire month (enthusiasm/willpower has been waning this week).

5) Don't go over budget in more than two catagories this month (it was 4 last month).

Bonus - Figure out OMFG and keep it up to date weekly.

[Crimson King]

Goals:

Become better at parkour

Become a happier person

Talk less, observe more

Parkour:

Practice 5 times a week

Run a bit to increase leg strength

Start doing squats to improve lower ab strength and lower back strength

Becoming happier:

Get more sleep

Control negativity one day at a time

Find a creative outlet for negativity

Talk less:

Think before speaking

Wait a while after thinking

Eliminate pointless conversation

[Alethea]

RDWagner,

May I suggest setting some concrete goals in your workouts to keep you motivated? SHowing up is definitely 80% of the battle, but I'm sure you want to accomplish something while you're there.

Otherwise, I like your goals! Specific, measurable and attainable. Awesome.

[Alethea]

Crimson, I applaud your happiness and talking goals. The world would be a better place if more people valued such things. I can appreciate that they're hard to measure (just did a "less negativity" one myself, and found it hard to quantify every day), so maybe do some thinking about what you would consider a success every day/week?

As for your physical goals... what does "a bit" and "start" mean?

[Crimson King]

Alethea, thanks for pointing that out for me, I didn't notice that I was using the word "a bit". I suppose that I need to specify my goal more, as to me it seems too vague now. As for the squats, I did them, but they seemed too difficult at the time, so I stopped. That's why I'm going to start again . And I would like to ask for help as how to define success, because I myself haven't got the measure for the definition.

[Crimson King]

And I would appreciate some suggestions for creative negativity outlets, because I sure as hell haven't found one yet

[Plex]

Crimson,

I always do cardio for my negativity outlets. Stuff like running in nature and whatnot relaxes the mind and allows you to focus on WHY you are being negative and either A) deal with the problem or accept and move past the emotion. At least, that's what worked for me this summer, and boy did it help.

Alternatively, watch a smash'em up action movie. Often times we can sympathetically release our bad emotions by watching them performed and get a vicarious visceral thrill. Same applies to horror movies.

[Alethea]

Success is individually determined here at NF. We don't tell you whether you done good, you tell us. You know your strengths and weanesses and circumstances better than we do, after all. I promise you, what I consider a satisfactory workout is VERY different from Spezzys. So, what to YOU is a success? What would you be happy with?

I can understand start DOING squats, but if your goal is to start doing squats, you could do 2 (you did pluralize it) on the very last day and bam! Goal met! But would you be satisfied with that? How many do you want to do at a time by the end of the challenge? 1? 10? 20? 3x20? Or how many total do you want to do in a month?

Get more sleep? How many hours? For how many days a week?

In terms of negativity... Heh. That has been a long struggle for me. First, you need to identify when you're being negative. One idea I heard was beads on a bracelet or pennies in your pocket. Every time you notice yourself being negative, move a bead/penny. Then count them at the end of the day. You'll skyrocket as you become more aware, then start to go down as you practice seeing the positive angle of life.

Second... not sure what you mean by "negativity outlet". You could smile politely until you get somewhere alone, at which point you scream and punch the wall, but that isn't reducing negativity, it's just... rechannelling it. Unless you mean "activities that make you feel good when you're feeling bad". At which point... Reading? Walking? Music? I'm boring.

What I've found is to examine the negativity. Don't deny, but get to the root.

i.e.:

"Oh, the bloody train is delayed AGAIN because some stupid idiot is standing in the bloody doors and can't fit inside. I"M GOING TO BE LATE".

Okay, well, the dude is probably freezing and wants to get in the train and can you really blame him. He'll figure it out and move. It's not a personal attack against you, you don't know that you're going to be late, and you wont even remember it tomorrow. So why are you being negative? Conceed that your negativity isn't the appropriate response, and figure out a better one.

This is probably a way longer post than you were wanting, so let me just say... addiction is caused by receptors in our brains getting activated by chemicals. The receptors become accustomed to being activated, and when they're not, we get... whatever. Antsy? Cranky? Name it. If you lead a negative life, and you start trying to be positive, your brain lost one of it's favorite chemicals. You'll WANT to be negative. It'll feel good. Stick with the plan, and you'll get over it. Then being happy will start to feel good. : )

[rdwagner]

RDWagner,

May I suggest setting some concrete goals in your workouts to keep you motivated? SHowing up is definitely 80% of the battle, but I'm sure you want to accomplish something while you're there.

Otherwise, I like your goals! Specific, measurable and attainable. Awesome.

This is exactly what I am trying to do, but my goal is vague. I want to get to a point where I can start practicing parkour, but when is that point, or what moves do I need to do to ensure I'm ready to start jumping around? I know I want more upper body strength to be able to pull myself up a ledge/wall taller than myself. So one very specific goal is to get a pull up bar for my house to start doing pull ups, and then start doing/trying to do pull ups. I'll crank through the assassin threads today to try to get some more specific ideas/goals, but any direction would be better than "I want to learn parkour."

[Knightwatch]

Hmm. I don't do parkour, but most everything I've read on the topic stresses three base things when first starting.

1. a knee-tucking jump

2. landing somewhat softly

3. rolling

So maybe your goal can be to practice each of these things for like 30-45 minutes a few times a week (or every day).

After a basic warmup, work on a standing tuck jump, trying to land softly and get higher and more powerful each week.

Practice the rolls from a standing position.

Then maybe do the jumps off an outdoor staircase (or whatever works for you, maybe a box indoors), from just one or two steps up. At that point you can jump, land, get your balance, and go into your roll. Then try quickening it up each time untill you're blending the landing with the roll.

That would pretty much be your workout, and each week you'd move up a step or go off a slightly higher box.

Would you be a parkour master after these four week? Surely not, but you'd perhaps in a place where you can start learning the crazier fun stuff.

Again, I don't do parkour, so maybe my reccomendation of basics is way off, but the idea is the same. Work on absolute foundational movements, and work towards blending them into progressive athleticism. Once you spend a few week laying that foundation, you'll have a good base to start learning stuff from, as you'll be better fit for the challenges, and you'll be able to understand them "in context", since you'll be used to jumping and landing and rolling.

[Knightwatch]

Here's what I'm thinking:

1. Establish a new deadlift PR. This lift has taken a beating by way of disuse for the past few months. I figure 4 weeks will give me just enough time to hit my old level, and then maybe inprove on it by one session.

2. Pushups. I don't think I've ever incorporated pushups as a goal before. In fact, I don't think I've ever included any bodyweight exercises besides pullups. So I'm not sure what to aim for. Just pick an arbitrary number to complete in a set (40? 50?), or follow a structured program, like the 100 pushup plan? Obviously I wouldn't follow the entire thing, since it's only 4 weeks, but I should still improve since it's based on max efforts. My success, then, would be my improvement from the inital teast to the last max effort. That might be useful since I lack dicipline in these kinds of additional workouts, so maybe it'd do me some good. On the other hand, maybe I would get bored and stop, and I'm be better just hammering away at a target. Hmmmmm.

3. Fat Loss. Maybe 10 pounds is too ambitious. But five might be too easy, given how quickly I gain and lose. 8 pounds, or 2 pounds a week?

4. I'm also thinking I need to work on the kinds of calisthenics that come up in Crossfit a lot. Namely, ring dips (most humbling exercise EVER), kipping pullups, and handstand pushups. And maybe L sits and full situps. I'm so awful at the ring dips and HSPUs that completing one clean, unassisted one would be grand. Maybe I'll concentrate on just those to avoid overwhelming myself.

Hmmmm.

[rdwagner]

I like the idea of working on basics and foundational moves. I've started walking the stairs at work this week to build up muscle around my knees because I feel this is a weakness I will have for doing jumps. I am also a bit nervous of rolls, so that is not in this month, but for sure next month. Landing/dropping softly isn't an issue when I've tried it a few times from my stairs and the back of my couch (my kids love to watch me do this....). I tend to be pretty good at landing on the balls of my feet, but I do take more impact to my knees and they have felt weak, which is why I started to do the stairs. I am sure someone else can critique my landing to keep me from hurting my knees, but I haven't found anyone local doing this yet.

[rdwagner]

3. Fat Loss. Maybe 10 pounds is too ambitious. But five might be too easy, given how quickly I gain and lose. 8 pounds, or 2 pounds a week?

I am certainly no expert, but I can tell you what I ran into. I think the weight number is the wrong thing to measure, because I've been stead at the same weight for the last two weeks, but I am measuring and looking much thinner. I know that since I've started doing some strength training (about two weeks now) that I'm getting stronger, so that is what I'm focusing on. It was pretty discouraging for me to see the numbers stay the same, but when I measured my waist and look in a mirror, I can still see significant change. I don't know how easy it would be to measure body fat % for you (I don't have any tools to do it) but I think that would be ideal to measure. Otherwise, maybe measuring inches or strength? What is your specific goal? To trim the waistline? To have lower body fat %? Just track and measure something for the month may be all the motivator you need, but deciding on what to track, I'd personally go with something other than weight.

[Crimson King]

Thanks Plex, I've just realized something. I could run in order to improve my leg strength for parkour as well as decrease negativity, so that's a double edged sword. And I absolutely love horror movies, so it's Army of Darkness and Night of the Living Dead for me XD.

Alethea: For the squats, I will do 4 sets of 10 five days a week, and increase the number of squats in each set by 1 each upcoming week.

I decided that I will aim for 9 hours of sleep instead of my 8, for at least 3 days a week, so that extra hour may come in handy for rejuvenating my body.

And I really like your "penny in pocket" idea, so I will try that and see how it goes. In terms of "negativity outlet", I meant an activity that would let me release negativity in an artistic or fun way, so it doesn't end up hurting me. And a longer explanation is better than a two or three word one in my opinion .

Knightwatch: I've been doing parkour for about 5 months now, but I do have to say that I need to work on my soft landings and high impact rolls, so I appreciate your advice on practice, because I've kinda been ignoring my landings and not really working on my rolls . I definitely like the idea of becoming better so as to not injure myself in the future.

[spezzy]

No that is perfect, spezzy, thanks!

So my long term goals are pretty general. Learn spanish, keep within my budget, put away a bit in savings, be healthy (wow is that super vague or what!), and become strong enough to start doing parkour (or rock climbing).

So I started in December with a goal to lose 25 pounds. To do this I switched up my diet dramatically. I have stuck with the diet for 2+ months now. I've started some body weight strength training 2-3 times a week and Tae Kwon Do 1 time a week. This week, I decided to walk stairs at work. I have stopped worrying about the weight as a specific number, and I just want to get stronger and become tone (lower my body fat %?).

So here it goes, please feel free to give feedback:

1) Continue strength training 3 times a week, only missing one workout during the challenge (this gives me flexibility with the chaos of kids)

2) Make it to Tae Kwon Do once a week

3) Do spanish lessons (Rosetta stone) for 30 mins twice a week.

4) Stick with 80% no "white" carb for entire month (enthusiasm/willpower has been waning this week).

5) Don't go over budget in more than two catagories this month (it was 4 last month).

Bonus - Figure out OMFG and keep it up to date weekly.

awesome. So by becoming strong enough to be able to do parkour, you'll be working towards your get healthy goal

I think those goals are awesome, they're specific and measurable, and make sense.

Maybe add an accomplishment? Are there levels of Tae Kwon Do? Or a specific milestone you'd like to make with strength training? (like, pullups or something?)

[spezzy]

Goals:

Become better at parkour

Become a happier person

Talk less, observe more

Parkour:

Practice 5 times a week

Run a bit to increase leg strength

Start doing squats to improve lower ab strength and lower back strength

Becoming happier:

Get more sleep

Control negativity one day at a time

Find a creative outlet for negativity

Talk less:

Think before speaking

Wait a while after thinking

Eliminate pointless conversation

I'd try to be a bit less vague - is there a specific piece of parkour you would like to improve the most?

Also, instead of "start doing squats" - I'd say "do x squats x times a week" Are you going to be doing weighted squats or bw squats?

For the negativity outlets, lifting gets rid of my stress and therefore makes me happy.

[spezzy]

Here's what I'm thinking:

1. Establish a new deadlift PR. This lift has taken a beating by way of disuse for the past few months. I figure 4 weeks will give me just enough time to hit my old level, and then maybe inprove on it by one session.

2. Pushups. I don't think I've ever incorporated pushups as a goal before. In fact, I don't think I've ever included any bodyweight exercises besides pullups. So I'm not sure what to aim for. Just pick an arbitrary number to complete in a set (40? 50?), or follow a structured program, like the 100 pushup plan? Obviously I wouldn't follow the entire thing, since it's only 4 weeks, but I should still improve since it's based on max efforts. My success, then, would be my improvement from the inital teast to the last max effort. That might be useful since I lack dicipline in these kinds of additional workouts, so maybe it'd do me some good. On the other hand, maybe I would get bored and stop, and I'm be better just hammering away at a target. Hmmmmm.

3. Fat Loss. Maybe 10 pounds is too ambitious. But five might be too easy, given how quickly I gain and lose. 8 pounds, or 2 pounds a week?

4. I'm also thinking I need to work on the kinds of calisthenics that come up in Crossfit a lot. Namely, ring dips (most humbling exercise EVER), kipping pullups, and handstand pushups. And maybe L sits and full situps. I'm so awful at the ring dips and HSPUs that completing one clean, unassisted one would be grand. Maybe I'll concentrate on just those to avoid overwhelming myself.

Hmmmm.

1) You know I approve of this one. thumbs up.

2) Do you know where you're at now? Maybe say like a 50% increase from that? And that would be hammering out a number, just in reps

3) 2lbs a week is good, 10 in the month is too many. I say seven.

4) For this one I'd pick one or two to focus on... instead of so many Don't want to get overwhelmed. What about ring dips and L sits, since they're similar?

[rdwagner]

Or a specific milestone you'd like to make with strength training? (like, pullups or something?)

I am in the process of negotiating with my friend to buy his freestanding pull-up bar thingy and moving it to my basement. Then I will know whether or not I can still do pull-ups. Then I can set an accomplishment of pull-ups. I haven't done them since high school, and couldn't do more than 3-5 then. I'm pretty sure I can't do them now. I wish I would have thought of this while I was at the playground tonight waiting for soccer practice to finish. I could have easily figured it out if I had thought about it. Oh well, I'm sure I'll have a bar by this weekend.

[spezzy]

I am in the process of negotiating with my friend to buy his freestanding pull-up bar thingy and moving it to my basement. Then I will know whether or not I can still do pull-ups. Then I can set an accomplishment of pull-ups. I haven't done them since high school, and couldn't do more than 3-5 then. I'm pretty sure I can't do them now. I wish I would have thought of this while I was at the playground tonight waiting for soccer practice to finish. I could have easily figured it out if I had thought about it. Oh well, I'm sure I'll have a bar by this weekend.

awesome! and you'll DEFINITELY need pullups for parkour.

[Crimson King]

My less vague and more direct goals

_________________________________

Improve at parkour

Become a happier person

Talk less

Improve at parkour:

Improve jumping ability each week by 1 inch

Improve rolls so they don't hurt my shoulders

Get stronger legs by doing 4 reps of 10 body weight squats 5 times a week(increase squat number by 1 each week)

Become happier:

Get at least 9 hours of sleep 3 days a week

Control stinking thinking 1 day at a time

Do something spontaneous whenever feeling negative

Talk less:

Observe people before talking

Practice saying less on a daily basis

Eliminate pointless conversations by not engaging or changing subject

[rdwagner]

Eliminate pointless conversations by not engaging or changing subject

I like this goal. I got stuck in the "front" desk at work, and everyone stops by and visits. I think if I don't start or engage, maybe the interruptions would be fewer.

Nice specific goals. I like them!