How To Start Exercising (Part 1)

The first step to successfully building a lasting exercise habit is setting the right goal.

Unfortunately, many people either completely overlook this step, or they set goals that never seem to stick.

Just like any other area of life, starting your exercise journey with a goal in mind is crucial for 3 key reasons:

1. It gives you a clear target to work towards achieving, helping you to stay focused.

2. By having an end-goal, you’re able to measure your progress along the way.

3. It helps you stay motivated as you make forward progress towards your goal.

Knowing how to set the right goal can be the difference between simply dreaming of developing an exercise habit and actually translating that dream to reality.

Today, I take you through a simple yet effective 3-step process to help you set and crush any exercise goal you may have.

Step 1: The WHAT aka The Destination

The first step in setting your goal is defining exactly what you want to achieve. You need to be clear on what outcome you’re aiming for.

A common mistake that most people make here is setting a goal that’s too vague.

For example, let’s say you want to get stronger. It isn’t enough to just have “I want to get stronger” as your goal. You need to define exactly what strength looks like to you.

Maybe you want to build your strength to be able to do your first pull-up. Your goal will then be: “I want to do one unassisted pull-up.”

Now, this goal is clearer. However, it’s incomplete because it lacks a timeframe.

Goals that lack deadlines can lose their urgency. Having a clear timeline helps to keep you focused and driven.

When setting your deadline, make sure it's realistic. Consider how much time and energy you’re able to invest in reaching your goal.

For your pull-up goal, let’s say you want to achieve it within the next 3 months. Your completed WHAT goal will now be: “I want to do one unassisted pull-up by December 31st.”

Keep in mind that the timeline is just a guide. You might reach your goal sooner than expected, or it could take a bit longer.

What matters most is that having a timeline keeps you accountable and helps you stay focused.

Step 2: The WHY aka The Fuel

Now that you’ve defined exactly what you want to achieve, it’s time to dive into your WHY—the reason behind your goal.

Ask yourself why achieving that goal matters to you.

This might bring up a surface-level answer at first. Go deeper than that. Ask yourself “why” two more times until you get to the real reason.

The deeper you go, the more powerful your WHY becomes.

For your pull-up goal, maybe your WHY is that you want to prove to yourself that you can conquer a physical challenge and redefine what your body is capable of.

Therefore, your WHY will be: “I want to be able to do one unassisted pull-up because I want to prove to myself that I can conquer a challenge that once felt impossible.”

Connecting emotionally to your goal is a powerful way of strengthening your WHY. Having a strong, personal WHY is what will keep you showing up when you’d rather skip a workout.

Your WHY is your motivation, the fuel that keeps you going, especially on those tough days.

Step 3: The HOW aka The Journey

This is where you’ll define exactly how you plan on achieving your goal. It’s how you’ll turn your intention into action.

Outline all the steps you’ll need to take in order to achieve your goal. Just like the WHAT goal, this too needs to be specific.

While the WHAT goal represents your desired outcome, your HOW should clearly define your process of getting there—your daily or weekly actions.

To be able to do an unassisted pull-up, for example, you need to build a foundation of upper body and core strength.

Your HOW plan might be:

1. Strength-training: Perform upper body and core strength-training exercises 3 times a week for 30 minutes—Monday, Wednesday, Friday.

2. Regular practice: Practice doing assisted pull-ups at the end of each workout.

3. Gradually increase difficulty: Progressively add on extra reps of the assisted pull-ups until you’re able to do an unassisted pull-up.

This is just a rough example of what you’d need to do to be able to achieve a pull-up goal. Depending on what your goal is, you can come up with a similar action plan.

Breaking down your big WHAT goal into smaller HOW goals makes it more manageable.

Each time you achieve one of these smaller goals, it boosts your motivation and keeps you on track toward reaching your ultimate goal.

What’s Your Exercise Goal?

For whatever exercise goal you have, take a few minutes to come up with your own strategy using this goal-setting process:

1. Clearly identify what you want to achieve

2. Reflect on why that goal is important to you

3. List the specific actions you need to take to achieve your goal

Remember, setting the right goal is crucial to your success. By clearly defining your WHAT, WHY and HOW, you create a powerful, actionable plan that turns your goals into reality.

Thanks for reading! I hope you found something valuable :)

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