Just show up: practical tips for goal achievement

With the end of gym lock down on the horizon, a lot of folks will be chomping at the bit to get back into and shift some tin. But some people won’t, to some it feels like the months of doing nothing, or little is such a big setback they’ll never get back on track. It’s very easy to slip into this mindset and lamenting over past things done, and goals now too lofty to achieve.
​
I’m going to attempt to fix that for you, with some practical tips, not only for fitness & health but any passion project or career you’re thinking about. They’ll start out a bit hand-wavy, but I’ll try to include some practical examples.

Sign up for coaching

One

Just Show up.

I don’t believe in saving the best till last so if you only read the title and then this tip you have all you need. Just showing up, or just starting whatever it is you’re trying to achieve will get you so much further than you think. Doing even 1% is so much more significant than 0%.

If you find yourself thinking ‘Uggh, I’m still pretty sore from training yesterday, I’ll give today a miss and see how I feel tomorrow.’ 

Instead, try ‘Uggh, I’m still pretty sore from training yesterday, I’ll just go anyway and see how I feel once I’ve warmed up.’ 

Talk to anyone who’s trained for years, there will be uncountable amounts of times they’ve felt awful and wanted to skip a session or even a week. But they went anyway. Even showing up and going through the motions is better than not showing up at all. 

Sign up for coaching

​two

Search for positives.

It’s incredibly easy to be negative, like falling out a boat and hitting the water easy. When it comes to achieving your goals, however, you must work to be unwaveringly positive. If you want a different framing on it, be aggressive. Constantly aim to take actions towards what you’re trying to achieve, rather than sitting being passive or inactive. 

If you find yourself thinking ‘This is so difficult I don’t even know why I thought I could do this.’

Instead, try framing it like ‘I’m having a really hard time with this, maybe there’s something I’m missing? Or maybe I can find help or support from someone to get me through this sticking point.’ 

Struggling is 100% okay! 

I’m leaving that as its own line for emphasis. It is okay to struggle with stuff or to find things challenging. The best way around that is to ask questions. 

​three

Build momentum.

All journeys start with a single step and that’s as #inspo as this blog post is getting. I’ve mentioned it previously in other articles, but the momentum built from small successes cannot be overstated. I literally started this article the same way. 
“Write the title, oh well that’s easy cause I think it’ll just be the most important tip, then just repeat it for emphasis. Okay, we got a title AND the first tip, let’s get tip two done. 

For a fitness-based example if you’re ever thinking ‘I don’t have time to meal prep for the week, it just takes too long.’

Try prep one meal ahead of time, hell if you have the stove on, might as well cook enough for two meals? That’s still two whole meals you don’t have to scrounge up at the time. Two positive steps to improving your health, and achieving your fitness goals. AND you now have some free time where you’d normally be cooking those meals, what could you fill it with?

Sign up for coaching

Four

A good plan now.
​
A good plan now is better than a perfect plan later. Translated as don’t pretend procrastination is planning. You will need to adapt your plans as you go, that’s a guarantee. 

Do you need the most dialed in and properly phasic training plan if all you want to do is get a bit stronger, or shift some timber, drop a dress size? No. Training is like medicine, if you need the advanced stuff, things aren’t looking so good. Don’t sit inactive with analysis paralysis, pick something, see it through, reassess and go from there.

five

Deconstruct your goal.

This one goes hand in hand with the idea of the small steps. If you sit down and break your likely large goal into smaller chunks, which can then be broken down even further you give yourself a much greater chance of success, and far less chance of being overwhelmed. 

If you’ve ever broken a set of high reps into multiple counts of three, or five, congratulations, you’ve already done this before. Taking something daunting like a set of twenty rep squats, and turning it into five reps, four times, makes it seem way easier. I can do five reps, I do that all the time, and with way more weight. 

A personal example,  my tax return. If we ever get audited those poor inspectors are going to have to wade through file folders calling their organisation every curse word under the sun. For those who haven’t had to fill one out this video will sum it up.

My breakdown for doing them is to only do one page a day. The return is eight pages long, eight pages of the most obstreperous and vague questions you’ll ever read, but still. One page a day, I can smash them out in eight days! That’s way easier to deal with. 

If this all sounds like mental gymnastics then you’re paying attention. How you frame things and your own mental attitude towards things is a really big factor in how well you do at achieving them.

Sign up for coaching

summary 

To round things up, the overall theme of these tips really just merge actions, with policing your own mental framing of things. The biggest thing in the way of the goals that you want to achieve is always yourself. There might be other things that act as speed bumps, but the only thing that can truly stonewall and put a hard stop on your achievements is you. Remember, just show up. 

I hope you found some of these tips helpful. If you did please let us know, or if you’d like to ask me any questions hit me up on social media, email, or phone. 

Author: Will brown

Will is co-founder and director at Athlete Training Systems, he has a true passion for coaching and helping people reach their goals.