7 essential tips to reach your fitness goals

Many of us start the new year with fitness goals in mind but end up not living up to those targets.

There are many reasons why we don’t achieve our fitness goals. It could be down to a lack of planning, or it could be a case of the wrong planning.

Listed below are seven tips to reach your fitness goals without stress.‎

1) Be Patient: It’s a cliche, but Rome really wasn’t built in a day. Getting fit takes time and requires a lot of effort from you. For now, you will need to be content with incremental gains along the way to your long-term goals.

2) Write Down Your Fitness Goals: Writing down your goals gives you a chance to properly formulate them and edit them as you see fit. It gets them out of your head and onto something you can actually see.

3) Get S.M.A.R.T About Your Goals: SMART is an acronym that stands for:

S – Be specific

M – Be measurable

A – Be achievable

R – Be realistic

T – Be time-based

Basically, your goals should be all of the above.

4) Take Note Of What You’re Eating: As you’re looking to get fitter, it’s very important that you put the right foods into your body.
Make a note of everything that you eat, including your main meals, light meals, snacks and drinks.

5) Adopt The Right Attitude: What is your attitude towards getting fit? Do you look at it as a chore that you’d rather not do, but which you know you HAVE to do?

Or do you see it as an everyday activity that is going to improve your mind and body in so many ways, and is therefore something you WANT to do?
If you are to achieve your fitness goals, you need to adopt the second mentality.

6) Find Out The Benefits: Do you know why you’re getting fit? If it’s simply to get “beach ready”, you might find that this alone doesn’t serve as enough motivation.
Carry out some research into the many benefits of getting fitter (such as lowering stress levels). It will give you extra reasons to get closer to your fitness goals.

7) Make This About You: Finally, make your fitness goals about you. This means finding a plan that works for your body, and not what works for someone else.