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Health & Fitness

What's Keeping You From Getting Results?

Accomplishing a goal is a great feeling, yet so many goals squander away with time. Take the time to ask yourself these 5 questions and you'll get closer to achieving your goal!

Finishing a triathlon, running a marathon, losing 15 pounds, dropping 5% body fat; these are all realistic goals that people make every day, but what keeps them from being achieved? Lack of motivation, knowledge, direction, time, all of the above? Answer these 5 questions and you’ll get closer to achieving your goals.

1. What is it that makes you want to achieve your goal?

Behind every goal there has to be a driving, motivating force otherwise where’s the passion for achievement? Ask yourself why? This simple question can lead to a variety of answers that can make you more motivated toward achieving your goal and perhaps even allow you to learn something about yourself.

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2. What’s preventing you from achieving your goal?

Is it time, lack of knowledge or direction, or apathy? Getting started is always the hardest part to achieving a goal. What are your biggest limiting factors in achieving your goal? Make a list of your top 5 reasons and prioritize them from highest to lowest effect on getting to your goal. The act of simply writing these down will often motivate you to putting more of the pieces of the puzzle together that allow you to reach your goal.

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3. What do you have to give to achieve your goal?

People don’t often think about what their goal is going to cost them.  Unfortunately nothing in life is free. For example, a goal of losing 15 pounds will require multiple things in order to safely accomplish this goal, but perhaps the number one will be TIME. People sometimes forget how valuable time is, and that it’s the one thing you can’t get back. Asking yourself the previous two questions will help to save you time and create more efficient use of your time going forward.

4. When do you want to achieve your goal?

People fail at achieving goals for a number of reasons but getting lost in the process is perhaps the easiest and most common aspect of failure. Without a direction and a timeline to achieving a goal, it’s a shot in the dark. Ask yourself when you need or want to achieve your goal. Set a realistic timeline and make bullet points of ways to help keep you on track throughout the whole process. This allows you to think more clearly and focus on what you’re going to do when you actually achieve your goal rather than worry if you’ll ever make it.

5. What’s one thing a day you can do to further the completion of your goal?

Before you go to bed or first thing in the morning, decide on one thing can you do today/ tomorrow that will get you closer to your goal. If its weight loss maybe it’s a nutrition habit to focus on. If it’s gaining muscle, perhaps make sure you get all your meals in for the day. This again helps with staying on path and sticking to a plan of direction.

Results fade when focus becomes foggy and actions become weak. Take the time to ask yourself these 5 questions and see what you end up writing down. When you figure out what the number one thing is that’s holding you back from achieving your goal, send me an e-mail and you might be selected to receive a month of free unlimited training to help you achieve your goal!

Chris Abbott is a personal trainer and owner of Total Fitness and Health. For more information, visit www.TotalfitnessandHealth.net “Like” personal trainer la on Facebook, or follow me @chris_abbott1.

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