5 Weight Loss Goal Mistakes To Avoid

[spoiler title=’Click for video transcript’ style=’default’ collapse_link=’true’]if you want to lose weight you need to set some weight-loss goals and in today’s video we’re gonna talk about five mistakes to avoid when you’re setting them up the other day I was looking through my Google Drive and I came across a document from 2015 and it was my weight loss goals and that year I lost about 15 pounds I actually probably lost about 20 but then I gained like 5 or so back and so then in 2016 I made another document and I set my goals in a little different way and that year I lost closer to 50 pounds so I tripled my results and when I compared the two documents I definitely saw some differences so that inspired today’s show I’m gonna show you the mistakes to avoid so you can set some goals and achieve them number one set size goals okay this is a mistake this is a very common thing a lot of women especially one to be a certain size and it seems like a good goal but there are some pretty big problems with it first of all if you’re not specific on brand and style of clothes and exactly what you’re talking about then you’re just being way too vague because sizing really varies from manufacturer to manufacturer and also with clothing to you might be you know a size six in a dress but size 12 in jeans so what if you then say well I want to be you know a size 12 in Levi’s very hard to know when you’ve truly achieved that goal for example what if you can you know technically you can pull them up and fasten them but they’re really really uncomfortable and it’s just it’s really hard to know when you’ve really truly achieve that goal there’s too much gray instead try doing a black and white goal in other words for weight loss a great thing to do would be track your weight get down to a certain goal weight that is a pass or fail either you did or you didn’t number two your goals are either too aggressive or not aggressive enough being too aggressive or unrealistic it’s going to be bad because you’re not even able to achieve the goal for example I said to myself well I’ll just lose five pounds a week and you know I’ve got all this weight to lose and I’ll be done in a few months that wasn’t realistic and it didn’t keep me motivated because I just it was like defeating I wasn’t losing five pounds a week and so it was a bad plan on the other hand if your goal isn’t exciting enough like if you say well I’m gonna lose five pounds by the end of the year does that really excite you that make you want to do it if your goal doesn’t make you excited then that’s not gonna give you the motivation to do it that’s what you’re gonna be motivated by is that excitement that you feel so if you write down the goal and you realize hey that doesn’t excite me if I were to achieve it then that’s not a good goal so for example in my own case I had to strike a good balance between something that would keep me motivated enough but that was still attainable and achievable and so I came up with about a pound a week I found that losing one pound a week was motivating enough when I took the long view which was if I do this consistently for a year I’ll lose 52 pounds and as a bonus I wasn’t feeling those negative effects that you can feel when you’re losing weight too quickly like nausea or tiredness or trouble sleeping I felt excellent the entire time so that really helped keep me motivated mistake number three you don’t make a plan so once you figure out what your goal is you have to figure out how you’re gonna get there it’s like your roadmap and if you don’t create that roadmap then you’re just gonna kind of wander so write it down write specifically down what you’re gonna do figure out how you’re gonna do it what are your rules like for example with my own rules the ones I had success with was I said I’m gonna walk six miles a day I’m gonna eat once a day Monday through Saturday and on Sunday I get to eat whatever I want all day long however much I want because trust me life gets busy and you many actually forget what your plan is it’s good to note exactly what your plan is so that you can refer back to it mistake number four you don’t break it down into little chunks so if you’ve got your goal and then you’ve got your plan then you need to have little sub goals along the way so that you can have little wins and this is really important to help keep you motivated and another bonus is it feels less intimidating for example if you have a lot of weight to lose then you know it can seem intimidating to say well I’m gonna lose pounds so if you break that down into smaller chunks like 5 pound increments then you’re getting little wins along the way and your achieving things and you’re making progress so for example if you had a 50 pound weight loss that you wanted to do and you said okay and I’m gonna break it down into five pound increments that I’m gonna lose a pound a week then every five weeks you’re hitting another goal instead of you know if it’s gonna take you a year you say well I’m gonna lose 50 pounds by the end of the year and then it’s like you’re never really hitting any goals and mistake number five you don’t check your progress so if you’ve written down your goal you’ve got a plan in place on how you’re gonna achieve it you’ve got your sub goals all written down and you never check on whether you’re making progress then you’ve messed up you have to check are you making progress because you don’t want to get to the end of the year and say oh man I didn’t hit my goal I would recommend at least weekly checking in with your goals see are you making progress towards those goals are you behind are you ahead if you find that you are behind you can easily check on yourself because you’ve written it down you can ask yourself these questions am i following my plan if the answer to that is yes then that means you probably need to tweak your plan if you find the answer is no you’re not following your plan well okay there’s a red-flag you need to say okay why am I not following my plan and then you probably find you need to tweak your planning a little bit so that you can stay on a plan so those are five mistakes to avoid when you’re setting your weight-loss goals so to help you out I’ve created a free Google Doc you can go download it make it your own it’s got step-by-step instructions on how to set your goals it’s based on the template that I used to set my own goals so I’ll link to that in the description also check out my website I’ll go into a little bit more in depth of you can see my goals for 2015 and 2016 and how they vary also if you set some weight loss goals and you’ve found some things that worked and some things that didn’t leave it in the comments below so that other people can learn from your mistakes and your successes alright I appreciate you watching talk to you soon [/spoiler]

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Click below for your free goal setting worksheet based on the template I made that helped me lose 65 pounds.

Here’s an example of a goal I had in 2015: Fitting into Size 10 Levi’s by December 10. Why was this a bad goal? Because I wouldn’t really know when I hit this goal. Could the jeans be skin tight? Could it be stretch jeans? Also, I had no idea how many pounds that meant that I needed to lose.  It wasn’t black and white.

Compare that to 2016, when I lost close to 50 pounds: One example was: Get down to a 7 day average weight of 160 pounds by November 11th. Much better. It was SMART:

• Specific- I aimed for an exact weight
• Measurable – I could measure my weight, and I could also measure other subgoals along the way
• Achievable – I went based off an average of a pound a week
• Results-Based – It was easy to see the result of the goal, and it was concrete. It’s not based on feelings.
• Time-Bound – It had a deadline

Have you had success with goal setting? Or have you ever screwed up? Put it in the comments below. Help others learn from your mistakes, instead of the hard way.