How to Achieve Your Fitness Goals

Vol. 6

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Last week, we wrote about how smartwatch accuracy (and inaccuracy) can impact your self-interpretation of your fitness progress, goals, and internal dialogue. Click here to read last week’s installment.

This week, we’ll dive into how to use your internal dialogue to prepare, achieve, and track your success using your wearable device. We’ll break it down into 3 steps:

1. Setting Fitness Goals

2. The Formula

3. How To Use Your Smartwatch For Your Goals

Setting Fitness Goals

Honestly, we’ve all set some kind of lofty fitness goal. These goals could be to lose weight, get in prime condition for a race, or fit into old jeans. And, just like we’ve all set these goals, we’ve all failed at some point.

But that’s normal, right? We all fail. So that makes it okay. Well, writing down and following through on our goals is difficult. But, it pays off - literally. Harvard Business School found that while only 3% of graduates had clear, actionable goals set throughout their studies, they ended up earning 10x more than the 97% who either had no goals or whose goals were not actionable.

“Just the Tip” for setting achievable goals: It’s all about knowing your why

Your why isn’t “to lose 10 pounds” or “to have a six-pack" or “to run a marathon”. Those are the results.

Your why boils down to the intrinsic motivation that gets you up for that 6 a.m. run. Here are some examples of why’s:

Because I want to…

• Push myself to become healthier

• Challenge my limits

• Live to [enter age here]

• See what I’m capable of

Now that we have our why, we can move forward to The Formula.

The Formula:

Achieving your fitness goals is broken down into 3 parts.

Current State:

Goal:

My Why:

1. Time (how much time invested in my goal per day)

2. Commitment level(how many days per week)

3. Moderation (are you willing to be patient?)

Then, work backwards (3, 2, 1)

See an example of a filled-out version here.

Find a blank template for your use here.

We’d love it if you’d share your completed goal templates with us so we can cheer you on and check in on your progress! All you need to do is hit reply on this email to share.

How To Use Your Smartwatch For Your Goals

Your smartwatch can actually do a lot of the legwork.

Apple:

Apple has plenty of running, strength training, and general fitness coaching tools that you can add / edit onto your watch. You can also pair your Apple watch with a running app like Runna or Couch to 5k to get live coaching during your workouts (here’s a how-to of how to edit your apple watch fitness goals).

• HUGE IMPACT: Nike Training Camp for the Apple Watch is by far the most in-depth, free training tool for Apple Watch users. Download it here

Samsung:

Samsung health gives you wholistic access to weight management, running, strength training, stretching, and more to help you set, track, manage, and achieve your fitness goals.

Here’s “how-to edit goals” for Samsung Watch.

Garmin:

Garmin offers free 5k, 10k, and half-marathon training through Garmin Coach. If you have a Garmin, would definitely recommend checking it out. Here’s a YouTube video showing you how to set up Garmin Coach.

Garmin also allows you to download a variety of different training plans (strength plans, spin classes, Yoga) from the web. Read more here about other training plans

Bonus: Here’s some additional training plans for runners

Fitbit:

Fitbit is the OG smartwatch for running / step count. However, it doesn’t have any personalized coaching that’s available to users for free. If your watch doesn’t have any personalized coaching tools, you can use MapMyRun or Strava for free.

Our advice? When it comes to setting goals, make them actionable, write them down, and get help from an expert (your friend on your wrist!)

Resources

Apple Running Coach (option 1)

Apple Running Coach (option 2)

Want to learn more?

Something we missed or misspoke?

Want to hear on a specific topic?

Reply to us here and we’re happy to chat and help you learn more about your wearable.