Set Goals - Soar Past Them

The wall behind my computer at home is a mess.  It's a scramble of index cards with numbers scribbled on them and pieces of paper with factoids printed out on them.  There are only two things that really stand out on this wall.

The first is a picture of me from the summer of 2005.  At the time, I was working in a town an hour north of Virginia Beach, VA.  I was employed with a summer camp and I worked from before the sun came up until a few hours after then sun went down.  It was one of the best times of my life, and I worked harder than I've ever worked there.  It was a lot of physical labor.  I burned more calories than I could consume.  I lost 50+ pounds that summer in a little over three months.  When I got back home, I had a tan and I was the thinnest I had been since I was 15 years old.  I had a picture taken with a friend there right before I left and it stayed buried in a box of old memories until a year ago.  After I found it, I became jealous of the guy in the picture and wanted to be like him again.  I hung the picture up on that wall and decided that I wanted to be like him.

The second thing hanging on my wall is a set of goals written on index cards.  They are all weight goals right now, but after I hit a certain point, I plan to make them more "physically oriented" goals.  With each goal that I have, I have a written time frame that I want to reach that goal by.  If I meet that goal in the time frame allotted to me, I get the reward I have set aside for myself.  These goals were written in February 2011.

Here are my current goals:

1. Reach 350 pounds.  Date - April 2011.  Reward - Steak Dinner and Movie with Wife
2. Reach 325 pounds.  Date - August 2011.  Reward - Buy New Clothes
3. Reach 300 pounds.  Date - February 2012.  Reward - Vacation with Family

As you can see, the goals are set at certain intervals.  My intervals are 2 months, 6 months, and 1 year.  I have only set the first goal to be somewhat lofty.  The rest won't actually be too hard.  I hope to meet the 2nd goal way before August.  I don't think I'll even have a problem meeting the 3rd goal before next February.

I also have an ultimate goal.  My ultimate goal is to be able to do a regular pull-up.  Some of you skinnier folks out there may be laughing or confused, but that is one lofty goal. 

My recommendation with all goal-setting is to keep it reachable.  Don't make it too easy on yourself, but also don't set it out of your grasp.  I will say that setting weight goals isn't always recommended.  Sometimes our weight will fluctuate if we have an off week, we gain muscle, or we retain water.  All of these things can throw off your results.  That's why a very common recommendation these days is for people to track their health through pictures.  I take a picture of myself once a month to track my progress as well.  I may only lose 5 pounds in one month, but it may look like even more in the pics!