Yes you can take the steps to achieve your health goals by following steps. In fact the path to success usually has steps; it’s rare for goals to be “accidentally” achieved.

Success is rarely an accident, it leaves clues and hints.

– Unknown

Having goals is awesome and all, but without a plan and strategy, goals remain over there, in your dreams and to-do lists. There are a few steps needed to turn your wish into a reality, and it involves having basic components of belief, faith, discipline and consistency.

At the top of the list is BELIEF! Actually ask yourself, do you truly believe that you are worthy of having what you want? If deep deep down you don’t, you will find yourself subconsciously sabotaging your efforts – taking one step forward and two steps back. Work on your belief and view of yourself and see yourself being the type of person who does what you wish to achieve.

Once your mindset is in the right place, the following steps can be applied:

1. Define Your Main Goals Clearly And Write Them Down

You have to be very specific about what you want – want to lose a few inches from your waist? Or to lose 20kg? Or to be the strongest woman/man in your country? Or to reduce your body fat? Or maybe to become the most chiselled you have ever been. You need to have clarity of what exactly you are going for, and know where your ultimate destination is. Clarity on any goal in life helps you to be specific of what you are aiming for, and it applies also to your health goals.

2. Create Mini-Goals To Achieve Your Main Goal

You will need to make smaller short-term goals to aim for, such as monthly or weekly goals. The benefit of using smaller goals is that they help to create confidence, and as the confidence builds with momentum, you will inch and foot your way towards your ultimate goal with consistency. This is especially necessary if you have an ambitious ultimate goal (which is awesome BTW, the bigger the better) – smaller landmarks to aim for keep your focus active and consistent. This could look like losing 5kg a month, lifting 10kg more per month, running 10km a minute faster each month etc.

3. Create Strategies To Achieve The Mini-Goals

This is now where you create and plan the actionable steps, such as going to the gym 4 times a week, having a protein shake each breakfast instead of cereal, doing 300kcal of cardio a week, sleeping 30 minutes earlier every night, get a workout routine and commit 3 days a week etc.They are the actual processes that will lead you to your ultimate goals. The seemingly small and insignificant tasks that you take part in consistently and over a long period of time create the biggest impact.

That’s the power of creating the right habits; they truly make or break you, and it becomes clear in the long run. The difference between “just one donut” every night before bed and “just one donut” only once a week matters more that it seems. At least aim for 51% good decisions, to start with, then add a percent every week. Remember to keep the goals small.

4. Visualise Yourself At Your End-Goal

As you go through the whole process, every day, remember to take time to actually see yourself at the end goal. This helps to reinforce to your subconscious mind that you ARE that person because, when you actually believe and see yourself being able to achieve it, your subconscious mind will do everything in it’s power to help your physical reality match your mental reality; it works the same with health. If you can see yourself having more energy, looking leaner, or being stronger, or being a faster runner, it just seems so much easier to actually become it.

5. Reward Yourself For Your Achievements

Putting in the work consistently is work, it isn’t easy, and you need to reward yourself and recognise all you do towards reaching for more. Now this reward system does not automatically mean food ie cheat meals or worse yet, cheat DAYS (which I don’t agree with as they reinforce usually hyperpalatable foods as “valuable” and your daily work/commitments as “chores” instead of as respectable steps towards improvement).

It means learning to reward yourself mentally, bask in your accomplishments and develop your self-respect as you see yourself as someone who can aim for a goal and achieve it (it’s honestly the best feeling in the world), and no-one can take it from you.

This will also help to set your behaviours in and allow them to become habits, which are intrinsically rewarding (requiring no external reward, enjoying the action for its own sake). And THEN you have hit the sweet spot – you can reach that ultimate goal, and you’re now living the dream.

Do this long enough on just about any goal you want, and congratulations, you are a winner.

Thanks for reading, subscribe below for more updates 🙂