Aim for the stars and hit the moon. The objective of any goal is to give you direction on where to head towards in life, not necessarily the achievement of the goal. There is nothing wrong with achieving your goals. I have achieved many of mine, but when that happens I don’t relish in my achievement for long. I simply set a new goal that is more ambitious and begin a new journey towards it.

I have always been a fan of the Japanese concept of Kaizen. Small, steady, consistent improvements everyday leading towards a greater cumulative achievement. Certainly there exist windfall opportunities and successes, but that is usually more within the realms of finance and fame. Most real things in this world are achieved step by step, brick by brick. For sure, we have all seen breakthrough moments that make us believe that someone’s meteoric rise to prominence was based on genetics or luck, but almost always it was built on countless hours of hard work that nobody saw.

What I will share in this post, is a simple method that can help you stay on track in the pursuit of your goals, allowing you to continue improving throughout your life. You can apply this to almost any aspect of existence, but I will use most of the explanations in terms of health, fitness, and performance. 

As you know, one of the key aspects we emphasize in our program is Self Awareness. We can all continue to know ourselves deeper on a daily basis, but we need to have a clear view of who we are and where we stand in the world. Without a clear understanding of this, we will have a hard time setting any realistic goal. We need to know where we are so we can better understand how to get where we want to go. Don’t let me tell you what is realistic, but if you don’t really believe you can achieve your goal then it is almost certain you will not. I think we should always set goals that we believe we can achieve, but outside of our comfort zone, which will require a good degree of self awareness.

If we know we want to have a fully defined 6 pack, but we have layers of fat covering it up, I think having the goal of a 6 pack is totally reasonable and optimal. There is enough proof in the world that anyone with the right approach and self discipline can achieve a fully defined 6 pack. However if your goal is to have a 100 inch vertical jump, then you may be unrealistic. There is no proof of anyone having jumped that high. So just because your current best is say 30 inches, your ability to increase 70 more inches defies all we know about human capabilities. Again, maybe I am wrong and you want to go for it, I say you go for it. Perhaps you never get anywhere near 100 inches, but in the process of pursuing the impossible you arrive at an astounding 50 inch vertical jump. 

That is the idea of a good goal. You don’t have to get there, but you use it to motivate and pull you towards it. A good goal should have a sense of gravity. It makes you want to do the right things so it gets you closer to it each day. Again self awareness is key. You have to be sure the goal really aligns with what you really want. Once that is understood, then it is time to clearly define your goal. Say you want a 6 pack or a 100 inch vertical jump, whatever it is, write it down so you can see it often daily. You can put it on a piece of paper and carry it with you or put it on the fridge. You can put it on your computer or phone screen saver. You don’t need to announce it to anyone, but if that helps to keep you motivated, go right ahead. Make sure it is something you really want to achieve and declare it clearly to yourself in writing. 

I believe, as do many others, that you should write your goal in the format of I Am. Affirming that you are what you want to be, as compared to I Want or I Wish. It is a simple semantic trick for your subconscious mind. So if your goal is to have a 6 pack. Your written goal would be something like this. I am lean, muscular, and a ripped 6 pack. You can word it however you want, but saying that to yourself in the morning upon waking and in the evening before sleep helps program your subconscious mind to work for you and the goal you have set. It is good to remind yourself throughout the day of who you want to be, or should we say, who you already are, and your physical reality is just taking a little time to catch up. 

That little trick can help, but it can curse those who buy into the hype that just believing you are something will allow it to manifest into your life, without any changes in your behavior or direct action. I think there is a lot of bullshit peddled by lots of people that all you have to do is believe it to be so and so it will be. For sure if you are completely delusional and live in fantasy land, but in the real world you need to take consistent action in the right direction  

Thought is great to help set the course, but the journey is much more than the map. It is good to think less and do more, once you know what you want to achieve. It is important to note that sometimes what needs to be done to achieve your goal is less action, or inaction. Sometimes inaction is the best action. For example, getting lean usually requires less eating. So it is not about doing more with everything, but rather doing what needs to be done, and eliminating what works against you. If your goal were to save money, you would eliminate any unnecessary spending.

All of this is very simple to understand theoretically but often very hard to apply. I believe that is because the subconscious will constantly work against you to get you to return back to your comfort zone. Your ego wants things to stay the same, and as you start to change behavior to move towards your new self, your mind will start to perceive whatever it can to get you to return home. Ever notice how when you start dieting somebody invites out to lunch or dinner?

That is why people who start a diet of low carb, switch to high carb after a week. They will say, “I tried low carb, but I felt weak and lethargic. I couldn’t focus throughout the day, and I felt flat in my workouts.” Maybe that is so, but usually it just means they gave up, once they felt difficulty and resistance. That is why it is good to make a deadline along with your plan, and then switch things up accordingly only once you hit your deadline.

So our goal is to have a clearly defined 6 pack. Lets say our example person weighs 200 lbs with 20% body fat. They need to get down to around 12% body fat, but let us be sure those abs are popping, so we decide to shoot for the holy grail of ripped bodies and aim for 7% body fat. That would mean our person needs to lose 28 lbs of body fat, while maintaining their lean body mass. A realistic deadline to lose all 28 lbs of body fat would be 6 months. It could be done faster but I suggest you set a timeline that is doable and if you arrive sooner, great.

So you will need to lose 28 lbs over the next 6 months. That equates to a little over 4.5 lbs per month, or 1.1 lbs per week. Each pound of fat has approximately 3,500 calories in it, so you will need to lose about 3,800 calories per week. This is typically best done by creating a slight deficit in your caloric intake below your maintenance level. This is where the concept of self awareness matters again. If you don’t know what your maintenance level of calories is, you can just take a guess. Most people say a good place to start is your bodyweight in pounds multiplied by 15 calories. In our example we would multiply 200 by 15 and assume our person’s maintenance level is 3,000. If you know that is well over yours because you gain weight, then adjust accordingly. On the other hand you might be like me. My maintenance is around 22 calories per pound of body weight. Now to get to that 3,800 calorie weekly deficit you would want to subtract 500 calories from 3,000, and you make 2,500 your daily limit. 

Now this works on paper, but anyone who has done it knows it can stop working and it’s not just hidden calories. The body is smart and it adapts. So you might lose 10 lbs in the first 4 weeks, and then weight doesn’t budge for two weeks. That is where self awareness and intelligence must intertwine and you learn to fail fast and make adjustments as necessary on the path the achieving your goals. You may need to incorporate fasting, carb cycling, sauna, cold, cardio, HITT, or any other number of things. Doing too much can be just as bad as doing too little. So while you need to have a plan and stick with it, you need to also be sensitive and realize when your plan has failed. Sometimes what works for the first 20 lbs, doesn’t work at all for the last 10 pounds. You have to adjust accordingly.

So far we have established that you need to know where you are, and what you want to achieve. Then you need to clearly define what you want in the I Am form. Then you need to form a plan, give yourself a timeline, and adjust when benchmarks aren’t met. That is all relatively straightforward and simple. The art of goal setting and achieving is usually more like a winding path with obstacles than a sprint down a straight lane. Sometimes the path clears and allows you to sprint, but expect obstacles and difficulties.

We need to try to use the Kaizen method of small little steps each and every day in the right direction. That means just doing a little more of the good stuff each day and a little less of the bad stuff. For example if you aren’t exercising at all, doing just 1 minute of squats is a big improvement. If you are eating dessert everyday, cutting down the portion a bit each day will make a big improvement. This is the basic concept of Kaizen and long term this can be totally effective at not only allowing you to reach your goal, but also making you more self aware.

You can be very gradual but I actually like to be a bit more drastic in the beginning which is why I like an inspirational deadline. If you would rather take the long road and enjoy the full process every step of the way, classic Kaizen can be your ticket. If you are like me and like to more aggressively pursue your goals, then you may want to slowly build the good habits, while abolishing the bad. Meaning in the above example, you gradually build your exercise routine day by day, but you totally eliminate processed foods. That doesn’t have to be the approach for every area of your life, but you may want to take it for your number one goal.

Eventually your emphasis on gradual improvement will need to change. If you add 1 minute of exercise per day, that might work for the first 60 or 90 days, but eventually you will run out of time. That is when you can start focusing on intensity, or many of the other variables we discuss in the program. Time is only one metric of exercise and in the beginning it can be a great point of focus. I personally don’t care much about time spent training. For me it is all about intensity and doing what I wanted to do for the day. I have some workouts that go over 90 minutes and many that are completed in less than 10 minutes. It is important to remember you use the plan or the form, in order to arrive at a formless state. Eventually the training and lifestyle become intuitive and habitual. At that point you will have achieved your initial goal and you will have new goals.

I currently have a few goals that are outside my reach but I use them to give my training focus and direction. I don’t lose focus that my original goal of feeling great and being able to perform at a high level has already been achieved. I enjoy my health and fitness and slowly and steadily work day by day towards my new goals. If fortune favors me, I will continue to achieve them and keep making new ones.

It has been often said,“Don’t fear setting a goal too high and not achieving it, instead fear setting a goal too low and achieving it.” While there is some truth in that statement, don’t take it too seriously. As long as you are alive you can always set new goals and go about achieving them in the best way possible. The only problem I see is when a person believes they can’t achieve a goal. Start small and build success with the little things, and then gradually grow your goals. Step by step you will achieve more than you might possibly imagine as long as your goal requires you to get a little bit better each and every day. That is the way I live and it is something we can all do. In the end we are moving forward or falling behind, because life doesn’t stand still. My wish for everyone is that we all move forward together.