“I want to lose 100 pounds and become a super model!”

How many of you had a goal similar to this when you first started Crossfit? Or maybe some of you are there now. Girl, I was right there with you! Except mine was more, “I want to lose 100 pounds and compete in the Crossfit games in a year.”

Goals are what drive us to get into the gym every day, to eat healthy and overall try to live a healthy lifestyle. But let me tell you too often do we get ahead of ourselves and end up completely overwhelmed.

Let me tell you what I mean. First of all, it is great to set a grand scheme goal or long term goal. So the “lose 100 pounds and become a super model” would be that long term goal. These long term goals that we set for ourselves are a lot of the times why we started coming to Crossfit. But it is really easy to lose sight of that long term goal if we don’t set short term or smaller goals.

Let me tell you a story. About a week ago, I was feeling super discouraged. I felt like I didn’t know what I wanted to get out of the gym, I wasn’t sure I liked what I was doing and I was just super duper discouraged. I didn’t feel like I was progressing in my lifts and I hadn’t hit a personal record in what seemed like ages.

One of the people closest to me asked me what my goals were both long term and short term. I honestly couldn’t answer him. I knew that my long term goal is to lose another 20-30 pounds and compete in a strong woman competition but other than that, I had no clue.

I realized that because I had no short term goals, it was seeming like I was never going to get to that long term goal. Long term goals take a long time to achieve and that is okay. Sometimes we don’t see the progress we are making towards those goals because it seems like we do the same thing every day. Somedays it feels like we are as far away from reaching those goals as we were the first day we stepped in the Crossfit box.

So what did I do? I sat down and started setting smaller, short term goals for myself. For example, I know that to get stronger and compete in a strong woman competition, I need to work on heavier lifts. So I set certain goals for hitting my personal records in my deadlifts and squats. I want to be able to hit 300 pound deadlift by the end of next month. It is a reachable goal for me. It is something I can work towards and accomplish while still journeying to accomplish my long term goals.

Another goal I set for myself is to help me with the weight loss. I made sure to look at where I want to be and how I can set goals along the way to get there.

So, I encourage both seasoned athletes and new athletes to set not only long term goals, but also short term goals. I can’t even begin to tell you just how much it has helped me not burn out and quit. Sometimes those big goals seem out of reach but if you take time to pull them apart and break it down, you will see that they are achievable. Take some time to set goals that not only will continue you on your path to you big goals but goals that you can accomplish this week, this month and in the next few months to come.

Try it out and remember; “a little progress each day adds up to big results.”(unknown)

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