Weight Loss Goals - Without depth are simply dreams

If you’ve been reading my blogs or watching my youtube videos, you will have seen several content pieces covering goals. I keep covering this topic from different aspects because of the depth required to actually accomplish what we want in life. But, unfortunately, the reality is 92% of people don't achieve their goals, according to the University of Compton. When you look at the complexities of human psychology, the distractions we face, and the difficulty of doing hard things, it's easy to see why this is true.

To understand our own behaviours and shape them to achieve our goals, we need to recognise some human complexities and then negotiate them to provide a vital pathway forward to what we want to achieve.

With being a Personal Trainer and Online coach for over 20 years now, I witnessed why people succeed and many others don't. So, in this blog, I want to show you how to create depth underneath your goal which, will shape you as an individual and your behaviours that significantly impact your efforts to achieve what you want. In short, you're going to learn how to become a goal-achieving machine!

First of all, I will provide a quick recap on 2 other critical components to goal setting:

1. Mindset framework – In a previous blog, I shared with you how to set up your mindset framework to help align what you're trying to accomplish with your values, standards and beliefs in life to help create positive internal feedback when you're doing the tasks required. To read the details of this blog and how to adopt that mindset, then click here.

• Philosophies & Principles
• Goals & Your Driving Force
• Courage
• Discipline
• Focus
• Resilience

2. Integration of your Lifestyle – The other critical goal-setting component is integrating how you think and the goal you want within your current lifestyle. Your goals should be complementary to your lifestyle, and your lifestyle complements your goals. Doing this will help you create a lifestyle you enjoy that puts your goal mission on turbo as you have ancillary forces in your lifestyle supporting you. To learn how to stop opposing forces holding you back in life, read my example of how I have done this personally and how you can do it, click here, and read this blog.

With the two points above now considered, I want to show you the final piece of the goal-setting framework which, shapes your world and channels your mind down a rapid pathway to achieve your goals and shape your identity into a goal eating monster. I'm serious; if you follow this framework, watch how you'll accelerate forwards towards your goals faster than you can imagine!

Side note, I cover how your identity significantly impacts your goal outcome in my blog Exerciser vs Trainer click here to find out more.

Perception & Depth of Goals

Are you playing small, or are you going for the jackpot? Let me explain why many people struggle with their goals due to their own perceptions of them. To use the easy example of losing weight, getting fit and being healthy. Most people decide they want to make a difference to their body and set themselves a target to be and look their best by a particular date, typically 3-6 months. The first problem here is the goal has been set to an arbitrary date, and with an expectation, they will have some miraculous transformation in a short time frame.

The second you set up a big goal and isolate it into a box by giving a deadline means you’re going to have to throw everything (including the kitchen sink) at trying to achieve what you want in that time frame. This approach does not allow for the human element of goal pursuit. If you're a human being, then it may be a good idea to use humanistic approaches towards your goals instead of thinking you're an impervious robot of execution. I hate to break this to you but, you're indeed human. You'll have days when you're weak, pathetic, tired, stressed, and emotionally overloaded, so perceiving your goal as several well-drilled activities you must complete within a short time frame is a fast track to failure. Just ask the 92%. From my home personal training clients in Liverpool to coaching busy professionals online, I always push this forward heavily to make sure my client stands the best chance of losing weight, getting fit and performing at their best! 

Going for the Jackpot

When you alter your goal perception as a complete mind, body and life transformation, which is a continuous journey of self-improvement day after day, you can create a pathway that will keep changing your body over time. The journey is one that never ends, and you move through a process of positive change every day. It's like trying to become a millionaire in 6 months by throwing your life savings into a high-risk investment strategy and working yourself into the ground to generate every single penny you can muster to hit the 7-figure goal. Or, focusing on becoming wealthy over a continuous period with a consistent low-risk investment that compounds over time and provides you with an incredible yield as you keep the smaller manageable outlay going throughout your life.

The latter part of the analogy will not give you a million in 6 months. But, over a more extended period, it will generate 10 times more as the compound of consistency multiplies. This works exactly the same for any goal (something I constantly have to remind my personal training and coaching clients). Don't view your goal as a small game to play in a short space of time. Instead, play the bigger game that provides you with jaw-dropping results over an extended period. I think bill gates said, 'people overestimate what they can achieve in 3-months and underestimate what they can achieve in 18-months'. So my advice is, don't play small and narrow; play the bigger infinite game that gives you true transformation instead of just losing a few pounds.

Depth of Goals

This is where you'll be blown away by how your brain works and how you can shape it to become laser beam focused on achieving your goals.

Do you remember the moonwalking bear video? Psychologists worldwide were stunned when they discovered the outcomes of this fun experiment. If, by some crazy chance, you've not yet seen it, click here. 

Why does this matter? Well, it proves the human mind will only focus on what it’s motivated to focus on. Despite the big bear dancing across your direct field of view, you don't see it. When you fix your sights directly on what you're motivated to accomplish, you will see many things that support this goal and fewer things that have nothing to do with it.

If you're wondering how to make the best use of this system, you must go deep! The depth of your goal is where you can find all the small things you need to concentrate on to achieve what you're motivated to accomplish.

Create the depth by firstly asking yourself why your goal matters for at least 5 layers deep will start to present what matters to you internally and externally in relation to this goal. The uncovering of all these layers of importance can now provide a starting point of things to do by setting up activities and tasks that link directly to all these components. This creates a web of things within your life that you can see that relate directly to what you want to accomplish. Seeing these things and their connection to what you’re motivated to achieve shapes your visual world, brain, and nervous system to seek out all things that move you towards your goal.

Just imagine your brain and body drawing you towards all the necessary things that are critical to your success and removing all the things that didn't matter out of your field of view. Well, I have good news and bad news. The good news is, you're already using this system every day with incredible efficiency, so there's nothing new for you to learn here. Now for the unfortunate truth!

The problem with this system is it can be a double-edged weapon. If you have been focusing on things that motivate you that are deleterious to your goals, keeping with the fat loss example, your brain and body will seek out those things that provide you with positive internal feedback. But, on the other hand, your body senses good feelings associated with things like chocolate cake, take-away food, alcohol, cigarettes, and whatever harmful thing moving you further away from losing fat, keeping fit, and improving health.

Side note, I've written an extensive blog on 4 steps to mastering habits. Click here to read more.

Do you ever feel tired and low on energy and associate consuming something sugar-based that will help your energy levels and make you feel better? Have you ever walked along a high street with no intention to eat but then smelled the freshly made bread from a bakery and taken a diversion into the shop to purchase some delicious pastry foods? The scary thing is, you may have this system so well trained, it’s become an unconscious process, and your actions have almost become a reflex. It's this system being the reason why it's incredibly tough to break habits. You've trained your mind and body too well towards things that make you feel good but ultimately ruin your health.

Did that truth sting a bit? I know it's rough but, it's neural science and biology. There isn't much I can do about it. That said, now that you have this understanding, you can start to take control of your own future by slowly reprogramming your brain and nervous system to work for you and not against you! This is precisely the reason why you need to go deep when you set your goals. In my Mind Body Life programmes, I walk my clients through this process, taking them step-by-step through the re-wiring process and recreating a pathway to success through powerful strategies that use your mind's incredible power and your bodies remarkable capability.

To summarise, once you adopt points one and two mentioned at the start of this blog, create a different frame of perception around your goal and embrace a journey of true transformation for life. To do this, you must go deep, focus on all the deep, meaningful things under why this is important, and then create multiple action steps for each of those areas you can implement into your lifestyle.

Remember, once you have clarity of depth, you will keep seeking those things which will help you move towards your goals every day. When this system operates effectively, your reflexive responses will come alive, and you'll quickly achieve your goals! Of course, as with everything, it takes work, but if you use the incredible capability of your body and brain, you'll gain astonishing success, my friend.

Now, get to work, and go deep!