Goals!

For me pre surgery the biggest thing that was on my mind in relation to my gastric bypass surgery was my goal weight and if I would ever reach it. I got to my goal weight just over a year ago now and it felt great to finally realise that goal. One thing I have figured out since reaching my goal weight is the importance of making sure you always have some goals to work towards.

I have kind of talked about this before but after bariatric surgery there is not point of completion. There is no marker or point in time when this process is ‘done’ or where you can stop considering it in your daily life. I naively thought before my gastric bypass that once I reached my goal weight I would be done and that’s that kind of thing.

I have since realised that this is an ongoing process and that my weight management is something that I will be monitoring for the rest of my life. Setting goals and having something to work towards is, in my opinion anyway, really important and helps give you motivation to do what you have to do. If you know what you are working towards it is much easier to make the right choices to help you become successful in reaching those goals.

Now that I am at the one year point of having maintained my goal weight my new weight goal is to maintain it at or below my goal weight for another whole year. This goal on its own is great but I’ve also set some more to help make that one more achievable. I have a few exercise goals like getting my average pace in my runs down to under 7 minutes per kilometer. I also find I have much more motivation to exercise if I have a running or walking event to look forward to so I will try and always have one coming up to work towards.

Goal setting is a great process. Think about what you want, what you really, really want and make some goals that help that come to fruition. I think it helps even more if you write them down and have them somewhere you can see them on a frequent basis so you always have it in your mind what you are working towards.

If need to your goals can adjust and change as you go to make them more applicable or change as your demands change. I have had to adjust my expectations for a goal I had set recently and I found it really hard to change my expectations of myself. Coming up to the Skechers 6K run I got quite unwell and it looked like I wasn’t going to be able to run it well and beat my time from last year. I adjusted my goal of beating last years time to just finishing it be it by walking or a bit of running too. It would have been more detrimental to my health at that time to push myself and run it so I adjusted my goal to suit the situation that was outside of my control.

The best situation though is when you are doing so well in reaching your goals you can adjust them and move the bar a little bit higher. This is where I get all motivational and tell you that you can achieve whatever you want. You are stronger, smarter and all round more awesome than you give yourself credit for and trust me if you work to your full potential you will be amazed at what you can achieve.

Have you done some goal setting lately or has this post inspired you to make some goals? Comment below and tell me what your goals are I’d love to know what you are working towards.