How To Set Life Changing Goals

I'm going to give you some advice that I guarantee no other coach is going to give you today.

But this advice is going to help you actually get on to the path of changing your life. This advice is going to help you set goals that you actually achieve.

It's going to help you finally do the things you've promised yourself you will do for the last 5-10 years but haven't.

It's going to help you regain your health, fitness, strength and confidence as a 30+ everyday athlete who thought they left all those things behind in their 20's.

And you likely not going to like the advice, you'll probably not believe it to start off with... but stick with me. I promise you this will work.

So here's how you set life changing goals.

You need to set your bar lower

I told you that you wouldn't like it.

But it's true.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not telling you that you shouldn't have big scary goals.

My 1-1 coaching page on my website literally says:

"If you've got a big strength, fitness or physique goal that scares you as much as it excites you, and you understand that expert coaching, programming and guidance is a key part of becoming your strongest self... this is for you"

Big scary goals are great. They are the sort of thing that get you out of bed in the morning amped to get to work on the next steps.

So in the grand scheme I want you to set your bar high.

I want you to aspire to be the strongest, fittest, healthiest, leanest, most confident person in your social circle. The person who's a better everyday athlete in their 30's, 40's and 50's than most people are in their 20's.

I want you to achieve things you never thought you could do. Double bodyweight squats, half marathons and marathons, driving your golf ball another 50 yards, walking out of the sea looking like Daniel Craig.

But the tricky part is where the fuck do you start with that?

The reason those sorts of goals are so scary is that we're often starting from a point so far away them.

So we've got this huge bridge to cross to get there, and the bridge doesn't even exist yet.

So to start off with, you need to set your bar lower.

Create Your Journey

Going from where you are right now, to achieving your big goal that scares you as much as it excites you is this big journey from A-Z.

But you're not going to get there in one big jump.

The actual journey is from A to B, then B to C, and so on and so forth.

You sadly can't transform your live, your physique and your performance in 6-8 weeks.

It's going to take a lot longer to tick off these steps and hit the landmarks you need to losing 10-15kg of body-fat, adding 100kg to your back squat, going from couch to 50km.

To be able to commit to compounding the actions you need to do, for long enough for them to start to take effect, means you need to set your bar lower and actually do it.

Not just 10 times. Not just 100 times.

For big, exciting, but scary goals, you need to be repeating these things 1000's of times.

And it helps if the bar is lower.

Low enough that you can't even consider missing to start off with.

Not doing it can't be an option.

You need to be hitting 99 times out of 100.

And the way to do that is to set the bar lower.

Follow Your Journey

I know this doesn't sound big and exciting like the initial big scary goal you maybe had.

It's a lot more exciting to think about the big, grand, spectacular actions you can post on your Instagram and get likes and comments for doing that one time.

But if you're not going to do it over and over, it's not going to progress you. You're not going to grow.

The beauty in focussing on the work you can't not do is that what that includes and what that looks like is always evolving.

At the start, your low bar may look like always squatting with a slower tempo, a pause and a high focus on technique to start your journey to a double bodyweight squat.

Or if you goal is physique based, your low bar may look like always sitting down for your meals with no distractions to make sure you eat consciously and focus on main meals over constant grazing.

But in a months time that's second nature. You've gone from A-B and now you're on B-C.

Your low bar for your strength goal is to maintain that technique, tempo and weight while you add reps to your sets on a weekly basis.

Or you low bar for your fat loss goal is to refine those main meals to contain 0.5x your bodyweight in protein to help preserve your muscle mass.

And again in a months time they don't even register and you move on to C-D.

If you don't do this, you could end up trying to crank out hopeful reps on your squat at a weight you can't control with the technique you're going to need to squat double bodyweight, and you're actually getting further away from you goal.

Or you could end up trying to fit 150g of protein into your day which has no meal structure or timings and you're searching for the highest protein meal deal in Greggs.

It's not going to work.

And that's just the first few steps.

Set your bar lower, and hit it over, and over, and over.

Achieve Your Goal

This is even more important for everyday people who have the goal of becoming everyday athletes.

These big, exciting but scary goals may feel like priority number one in your mind. They may genuinely be the thing you're most excited to do in your day.

But you also have a million other responsibilities to tick off on a daily basis too.

Whether it's work deadlines, a job that requires you to be reactive to your inbox, unexpected travel to see a supplier...

Or whether it's family responsibilities, a kids who's suddenly ill and can't go to school, a partner who's suddenly being dragged out the house and you need to pick up the slack, or a dog who's just taken a dump in the hallway.

Or whether it's your social life, an unexpected opportunity to see your favourite band in the next city over, a impromptu couple of beers to celebrate a friends new job, or a call for a round of golf that you'd really benefit from mentally to unwind.

If you set your bar too high, too close to perfection, these things are going to get in the way.

And these things aren't going to stop just because you've decided to invest in yourself, your strength and your fitness.

They're going to keep coming along and fucking up your best laid plans.

So setting your bar lower helps you get to work on creating something that will change your life, change your body, and create the best version of yourself without having to rip up the fundamentals of your daily life that are non-negotiable.

Set your bar lower and hit it over, and over, and over.

Initially I bet you didn't like this advice, but hopefully at this stage you can see where I'm coming from.

Drastic change and progression is build on a solid foundation of core, simple actions.

If you get a chance to watch the elites, the ones who achieve the amazing things that you see as your big scary goals on a regular basis, they will do it on unrelenting repetition of the basics.

It's not the weights they lift or races they run every now and they to showcase their peak performance.

It's daily things that make non-negotiable.

And they are much smaller and much easier than you may think.

So to achieve your biggest, more exciting, and scariest goals yet. Set you bar lower, and be relentless in hitting it.

And if you understand that expert coaching, programming, guidance and support are an essential part of your becoming your strongest self

Click here to apply for 1-1 Coaching.

Ian.