VP Health & Fitness

I can’t belive that there are only 2 more weeks until the New Year.  Exactly 14 days to get myself below 200 lbs.  It’s sad to think that i’ve let myself come to this weight again… but I have vowed to myself, not to EVER give up no matter how long it takes.  As I think back on this past year & everything that I have done & accomplished and I can truly say that I am happy.  However, I know that there are still many many things I need to work on to ultimately achieve many of my fitness & personal goals.

I also think back to the many books i’ve read this year & a lot of them have one thing in common.  GOALS.  I know i’ve written some down somewhere &  everytime I enter a challenge or come up with my own, I write goals for that as well.  There is nothing wrong with setting goals with strict guidelines, but i’m coming to find out that for me it’s just not working.  I usually set goals to high or with very strict perameters & end up failing everytime.

I read an interesting article the other day on Alwyn Cosgrove’s blog were he mentions the concept of a goal snowball. Skwigg also talks a little bit about goal setting on her blog & I though it was interesting because it really describes what I go through.

This is basically like Dave Ramsey’s simple and effective system for getting out of debt: the Debt Snowball (a concept that hubby & I have been trying to implement for the past year).

Basically, you list all your debts from smallest to largest (credit cards, loans, etc.) While making minimum payments on everything else, you focus all your efforts and extra money on the smallest debt until it’s paid off. Then you move up to the next debt and use the money you’re no longer having to pay monthly on the first debt to make larger payments.

That gets the snowball rolling. Pretty soon, you’re making $1500 payments on your car and paying it off in under a year. With no debt, you can begin building real wealth.

Cosgroves’ article applies this Debt Snowball method to fitness and writes out some guidelines for a Goal Snowball.  I thought it was interesting and might quite possibly be the answer to all this goal burnout i’ve been having lately.

Here are the basic concepts of the Goal Snowball:

1. Think of five or six behaviors you need to improve or change to reach your physique or performance goals.
2. List these things from easiest to hardest.
3. “Maintain” all your other goals and focus your attention on the first thing on your list (the easiest one.) This is the most important goal in your life for now! Remember, it takes about 21 days to change a bad habit and ingrain a new one.
4. Once that change has been made and ingrained in you, move up to the next item on your list and focus your efforts there.
5. One by one, knock out these changes and/or goals.
6. Once you are done, start the process all over again with new & differet goals

The idea here is to build little successes that add up over time. For many people, this is much more effective than trying to make a half dozen changes at once. Concentrate on one thing, pour your energies into it, achieve it, then move on.

I think this concept is AWESOME and most importantly - very simple.

I will write mine out and have them posted for next week’s update.

For now… my one goal for the next two weeks: Lose 5 lbs

~ Vilma

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