Published by Barry’s on February 19, 2020

Setting SMART Goals

New year, new you. While we love a resolution, the Barry’s fam believes in setting goals as a year-long thing. This way, you can look and feel your best for 365 days, not just in January (or whenever those New Year’s promises start to dwindle.)

We enlisted Founding Trainer, Barry’s Chicago, Jason Loebig, to lay the foundation on how to achieve long-term success in the Red Room (and in life!) with goal setting. The key here? You just have to be SMART.

SMART Goals

Without goals, it’s basically the blind leading the blind. In order to hit a goal, you need to have a roadmap on how you’re going to get there. Otherwise, you’re really just guessing at progress.

You may already know about SMART goals, but if not here’s a little refresher. When setting a goal, make sure each one is:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Accurate (Achievable or Attainable also work here)
• Relevant
• Timely

“I want to lift heavier weights” doesn’t really give us much. But “I want to increase my bicep curl weight by 5lbs in 6 months” gives us a little more to work with. Now you can start to craft how you’re going to achieve that.

Ask Yourself Some Questions

Once you have a goal in mind, ask yourself these four questions:

1. Why are you setting this goal? Ex. I just had a baby and want to feel like my old self again.
2. What priority is this going to take in your life? Life is going to compete for your time and attention, so make sure you know where your goal stands in terms of priorities.
3. What incentives are you going to create for yourself along the way? #Treatyourself to stay excited. Buy some new Barry’s swag after hitting the Red Room 3 times a week for a month! Enjoy a Fuel Bar smoothie after that morning class you used to usually skip!
4. What are the non-negotiables for your goal? AKA, what are the default decisions you’re going to make to get ish done, even on the days you’re not feeling it.

The Nitty Gritty

“I want to run the Chicago Marathon in 3:30:00 on Sunday, October 11, 2020.”

Great! You go, Glen Coco! But what about every day in between now and then? How many days a week will you run? How fast? With whom? Where? When?

Running the Chicago Marathon is a macro goal, AKA the big kahuna. And those annoying questions above are the meso and micro goals. They help you along the way to actually hit that big boy. Meso goals might be what you will accomplish in January. Micro goals are the daily, consistent things that you’ll do to get closer to your macro goal. All these little moments and milestone accomplishments are the only way you’ll be able to successfully cross that goal off your list. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts, ya feel?

Check Yourself

• Measure benchmarks frequently so you can see the progression over time and how awesome you really are! (Ex. Today I ran 12mph for 30 seconds, and last week I ran 11mph for 30 seconds. I’m getting faster!)
• Bring your goal to the forefront of your mind often. Create ways to be reminded of what you want to achieve. Make a vision board, start a Pinterest board, even save inspo on IG to a collection for easy reference.
• Visualize not only the things that will go well, but also the things that won’t. Life is full of curveballs, and it’s how you overcome the unexpected where growth happens. If you accept that you will have some not-so-great-goal-achieving days, you can rebound better from them and still stay on track in the long run.

Here’s to crushing it all year long. What can you achieve?