Richard Taylor from Tiger Fitness shares his top tips for setting, and sticking to, your fitness goals this year.
One thing I’ve learnt getting older is that the power of having something in the diary to strive for is so underrated. Many times, that ‘something’ leads to more ‘somethings’ and inevitably this will help build character, help keep you accountable and help you to continue respecting yourself.
Goals will differ from person to person, some may want to look at making healthier choices in their life for themselves and their families; others may look to work harder to get that promotion at work. In the fitness industry we work with a SMART goal template when setting goals. Here’s an example of how we’d work towards running a 5K such as Thetford Parkrun:
Specific – A simple, sensible and significant goal: ‘I’d like to run 5km.’
Measurable – How will we measure the progress: Start off by doing a general fitness test and see how far you can currently run at the moment.
Achievable – Agreed attainability: Taking into consideration your current fitness level, how you can implement training into your current schedule?
Relevant – Are all your training methods going to help you achieve your goal? Make sure we add running into your programme.
Time based – Sensibly looking at when you would like to achieve your goal.
Your SMART goals should be reviewed at an agreed date in the future to measure progress. Once this one has been done, you can then either advance on your current goal or set new goals. It’s important to have goals and a sense of direction, especially as we get older to help keep things fresh and maintain a life full of achievement.
Other tips to help you work towards a fitter healthier you in 2025 include:
Follow a plan – don’t just rock up to the gym or kitchen not knowing what you are going to train or cook. Think about the day/week and get excited about what is to come!
Change your mindset – don’t see exercise and healthy eating as a chore, see it as an opportunity to work on yourself.
Put in the work – anything that’s easy in life isn’t going to give you that feel-good factor.
Don’t be too hard on yourself – this may sound contradictory to everything I’ve just said but you are human, you will make mistakes. You will miss a training session, you will veer off plan – and do you know what? That’s fine! Just don’t let it happen too often!
So, what can you do differently this year to help you become a better version of yourself?
Richard Taylor, Tiger Fitness
