We all want to improve our lives in some way, shape or form. If your body and soul doesn’t crave improving your life, something in your human anatomy is empty and that is FACTUAL. Whether it’s your financial situation,housing, your mental or physical health, spiritual being, relationship, marriage, friendship, hobby, we all are looking to become better at something. So how do we go about acquiring these skills to improve our life??

The acronym SMART is now generic in my eyes since I’ve seen it nearly every day for the last 2 years. However the sense that it makes is undeniable. Let’s simplify in fitness terms how you can take necessary steps towards a healthier and happier you.

SPECIFIC: Don’t say “I want to get healthier”. How will you? What steps are you taking? When will you be doing this? I’ll give you a non fitness example.

“I want to double my income in 6 months. I will attend networking meetings, print flyers or PDF’s and distribute them to neighborhood businesses and condo’s.”

Pretty specific: Here’s a fitness example

“I want to lose 25 pounds by my wedding date. (Let’s say 4 months) I will hire a trainer, soak in his/her knowledge, consume more vegetables and protein. I’ll cut my drinking in half and track my walking/running steps. I’ll also keep a food journal.”

You don’t HAVE use a ton of examples to reach these goals, especially if you have a difficult time balancing schedules and tasks.

MEASURABLE: I will continuously use the fitness and financial examples:

It’s simple in the financial world, your bank statement measures that doesn’t it?? Will you have that drive and instinct to keep pushing and change your thinking if your original ideas fail? Better get creative here Junior…… 

Fitness can be described by your belt becoming looser and as a result, buying new clothes. You may start to see a tricep muscle or your abdominals. Perhaps you’re a diabetic and you suddenly are off of your medications since you have it under control now? You are thinking clearer, I could go on and on….

ATTAINABLE: Are you taking the right course of action to follow through on your statement?

Are you attending that seminar on a Saturday afternoon to improve your business instead of going to the lake with your significant other?? You can achieve nearly any goal you set when you plan them and establish a time frame that allows you to carry out those steps. Goals that may have seemed far away and out of reach eventually move closer and become attainable, not because your goals shrink, but because you grow and expand to match them. When you list your goals you build your self-image. You start to adapt a new mindset, all of the sudden you are sitting at a boardroom table with a high ranking official in YOUR field of business.

Fitness=You begin going to the gym on a Sunday morning at 830 while everyone else you know is hungover from a night at “The Mirage”. Your eating habits changed and you start training with someone who is advanced, you may get an urge to compete as a Crossfit athlete or a figure competitor? That wedding dress you set out to fit in? It became a reality! Why? You took the right measures and flipped your mindset to attain that goal.

REALISTIC: Doubling your income in 6 months is possible for a small business, especially when you are 1st launching said company. What about Starbucks?? Think about the coffee industry and the competition they face out there? Local coffee shops who flat out have a better product? You also have other larger chains who roast some phenomenal beans. Hell, gas stations sell coffee that may be adequate as well. Can they double their numbers in that short of a time span? I’m guessing no, they may look at percentages and set a very realistic number. With the proper advertising and launching of more Starbucks around the World, they may set out to decrease profit margins and continue to invent innovative ways for them to increase revenue.

Is losing 25 pounds in a month realistic?? Not to the average person that’s for sure. If you’re morbidly obese, that potentially is a different story. If you weigh 350 pounds, You could probably go on a Ketogenic plan for one month, lose a ton of excess water weight due to carb depletion and drop a pound day for 30 days. If your metabolism is broken due to stress or under eating, it may take some time fix that by eating a regular, structured nutrition plan. Stick with a goal you KNOW that is obtainable

TIMELY: Personal intentions of mine are: retiring at 50, keeping my abs until I’m 50. Short term include making the Crossfit Granite Games as a Masters competitor at the age of 37 and tripling my business revenue by December of this calendar year. I drew outlines of exactly how I’m going to get there, It’s ridiculously meticulous just how to a T my plans truly are. 

Without an end time in mind tied to your intentions,  there’s no sense of urgency. If you want to lose 20 lbs, when do you want to lose it by? “Someday” won’t work. You can instead say, “I want to drop these 20 pounds by November; then you’ve set your unconscious mind into motion to begin working on the goal.

Your goal is absolutely realistic if you truly believe that it can be accomplished. Additional ways to know if your goal is realistic is to determine if you have accomplished anything similar in the past or ask yourself what conditions would have to exist to accomplish this goal.

 

If you REALLY want to make an impact and raise your stakes, you can most certainly give “Reverse Betting” a gander. A good friend of my brother’s and fellow fitness entrepreneur Mike Vacanti wrote an article giving fantastic examples and how the process works right down here:

A Few Thoughts On Winning

In short, set your goal and also throw a consequence in there. If you don’t reach your “doubling your business goal in 3 months”, give each of your siblings $50 as a reverse bet penalty. Think you would like to give them some cash outside of their birthday and Christmas (Maybe you would, just an example but you get my point) if you don’t reach your conquest?

Keep it “SMART” people. Failing to plan is planning to fail! Do you have the gull stones to ask that gorgeous neighbor of yours out? Are you hesitant because her ex drove a Mazarti and has a high “status”? How about a simple question of “Would you like to come over for a bonfire?” The worst she may say is no, then what? You move on with your head up and find someone better. If she says yes?! See where it goes….you’re a human being just like she is.

 

In closing, (you can leave now if you want, I still on occasion watch pro wrestling) Here is a fantastic “scripted” promo from the man above Dean Ambrose. Almost one year ago after he “lost” a championship match (Yes I know it’s scripted)

“When I stole that championship belt a couple of weeks ago it was about respect. It was about taking what you feel you earned. Life ain’t always fair.  I’m from right here in Ohio and you people know life ain’t always fair. You can’t get a car loan because of a technicality, you don’t have a good enough credit score. So now you gotta walk to work, your children gotta walk to school on a technicality! Your boss pushes you around even though you’re better at his job than he is, and he talks to you like you’re an idiot but he’s the boss, on a technicality! So when I took that championship it was about screw technicalities, it was about taking what’s yours, what you deserve, what you feel that you earned, what you know in your heart and your soul that you deserve, that you earned! It was about just taking it. I’m a grown-ass man and I lost fair and square tonight. I climbed that ladder and I didn’t like what happened when I came down. I lost fair and square and I’m man enough to admit that. So I’m gonna fix this leg and I’m gonna stand up on my own two feet again, and one day I’m gonna be World Heavyweight Champion, and there ain’t no paperwork, and there ain’t no technicalities, and there ain’t no bullcrap that’s gonna stop me!”

He won the title 2 nights ago in 2016……..BE S.M.A.R.T. people

I’m a wellness coach who empowers people to go after anything they put their mind to. My biggest passions are fitness and wellness. They allow me to help people live their lives to the fullest. Follow me on Twitter @dajvshow24, Snapchat @JCV24(Still doing a live food log for 9 more days!) or Instagram at jcv2424.