Creating and achieving goals can be defined and organized by answering the common Who, What, When, Where, Why and How.  For the sake of this article we will concentrate on the most important of these…Why?  If we are honest with ourselves and can answer WHY we would like to achieve a particular goal, we have a better chance of actually achieving that goal.  Why…because motivation comes from within.  No one can provide motivation for us…we must want a goal ourselves, for ourselves…i.e. no one can tell us our own WHY for accomplishing a particular goal because we may not believe what someone else comes up with.  Often times we seem to confuse inspiration with motivation and search out inspirational quotes and speakers listing them as our motivation for achieving our own goals.  However, the reality is, what one person sees in an inspirational quote or speaker may not be the same as what another sees…therefore the logical conclusion must be drawn that inspiration is not the key to achieving goals, but only a tool to help ourselves motivate ourselves.

Does the WHY fall in line with your priorities…your belief system…your values?  Or, is the WHY more of a superficial reason looking to satisfy a particular whim or emotion.  The reason the WHY is so important is because this is where the motivation to drive through all obstacles comes from, to complete the task at hand.  Without truly believing in the WHY ourselves, the motivation will not be as strong allowing for a greater possibility of failure once a distraction or obstacle comes up to block our path to the goal.

Goals can be as large or as small as you can handle, and understanding the WHY gives you the motivation to see those goals through to completion.  How does this relate to fitness?  Many trainers will often require certain fitness goals from their clients without asking their clients to ask themselves the WHY.  Let’s take the common goal that many people have of losing weight.  If maintaining a healthy lifestyle, which includes a healthy weight are not priorities to that individual this goal will be much more difficult to obtain.  There will be any number of distractions and obstacles which will be hard to overcome and drive through, such as eating improperly; skipping workouts; or participating in contradicting activities such as smoking.  This is due to the fact that health is not a priority for that individual, therefore setting up a goal of losing weight without changing the priorities to go in line with the WHY, will not net the same results.  The person has to do more than just tell themselves they want to lose weight…they have to believe it is possible and adjust their priorities accordingly.  If your goal is to lose weight, ask yourself these questions and be honest.  Why do I want to lose weight? How important is this goal to me?  Am I willing to adjust my priorities?Why do I want to get fit now?

We all have the ability to set and achieve goals every day, and most of us do.  For instance:  Take the simple goal of arriving to work on time…this can even be broken down further into smaller goals: Getting up at a certain time every morning; taking a shower and cleaning up the appearance; making sure we can get from point A to point B either via personal or public transportation...etc.  All of this is done on a very precise schedule and if something…anything goes wrong at any stage, we may just be late to work.  Many of these small goals were planned and accomplished to reach a bigger goal of getting to work on time.  We are self-motivated to achieve these goals because we know what the consequences are if we do not.  The WHY in this case is driven by Fear.  Fear that we will not fulfill the basic necessities of life (in their primitive form): Shelter; Water; Fire; Food; which is accomplished through a paycheck in today’s society.  If we didn’t truly believe that fear…we didn’t believe that without that paycheck bills would not get paid and we would not like the resulting consequences, then we wouldn’t be as motivated to get to work on time.

This same example could be changed up just a little bit and be driven by the desire to succeed instead of fear.  If our goal were to arrive at work early, not because we would like to do the bare minimum to keep our job (as in the above example), but because we would like a promotion and view the act of arriving early as “going that extra mile,” the WHY changes as well. The motivation behind the WHY has changed from negative to positive…however both are still motivators regardless.  Importance in the WHY is that we believe it, negative or positive.  If we don’t, we’ll think the goal is unattainable and will lose motivation.

Once we have a goal which we believe in, we then have DIRECTION.  Now that we have direction all we need is a plan on how to get there (reserved for another article).  Once we have a plan, know where we are going, and know what we want to achieve…and if the goal is important enough to us (We believe in our WHY)…we will be driven or motivated to complete our goal.  What are your goals for Fitness; For your Family; For your career; For your life?  Are you being honest with WHY you want to achieve those goals (i.e. is the WHY important enough for you to make those goals a priority and achieve those goals)?  What is your plan to reach each goal you set?