October resolutions- of goal setting and (my logic on) how to achieve your goals

You know how we all set New Year resolutions at the start of the year and then by January 10 or so we chuck these goals aside and let them collect dust in the darkest corner of our lives. And then comes June where we tell ourselves that we will review our resolutions to see how far we have come but only to realise that we are nowhere near where we hope to be. This problem is called being a normal human being. We will get distracted and tend to lose focus on our goals because we are easily convinced that there are more important things to achieve like completing Season 9 of How I Met Your Mother.

Like you, I am experiencing the normal human being problem too. I have a list of things I was so determined to achieve at the start of the year and now on this very day in October, when I suddenly thought of my new year resolutions, it is really sad that not only do I not remember what they are, I am pretty sure I wrote them down somewhere and I can't find it. This problem is called being an Aisyah.

This thoughts about my goals for the year came into my mind because I realised, apart from losing in the Asian Games (yes, I am still not over it. Bahahha!) I haven't really achieved anything, have I?

Being endorsed by a sports apparel company wasn't in my new year resolution so that's a bonus. (Thank you, Under Armour.) It is already October and my medal count in NIL. I am a professional athlete and that is sad news but again, success isn't defined by the number of medals you win in a year, right?

So I've set myself an updated version of my new year (fitness) resolutions for 2014 just so that when the year ends at least I know I've achieved something. If you've been part of the Singapore education system, you will very much be familiar with the SMART way of goal setting so my goals are very much specific, measurable, achieveable, realistic and timely. (I hope I got the acronyms right, lol). And I've read somewhere that if you tell others about your goals, you are more likely to stick to wanting to achieve them. So here is the list v2:

1. To be able to do 10 chin ups (over hand grip) in one go. (Currently I can do 3, and my PB is 6.)

2. To be able to do a handstand. (I cannot even brave myself to stand on my hands with my feet on a wall!!!)

3. To run a 10km in 40mins. (The last time I did an official 10k race was in 2012 with a timing of 52mins without any training.)

4. To be able to pull a distance of 7510m in 30mins on the rowing machine. (Current personal record was 7503m set in Feb 2014.)

5. To run a half marathon. (The longest official run I did was the Urbanathlon last year of 14km.)

6. To be able to do a 6mins plank. (Did a 6mins last year. Once.)

7. To do 10 pistol squat on each leg unassisted. (Currently can manage 10 but with assistance.)

8. To be able to swim 5 laps along the pool without rest. (Now I will be happy to finish 1 lap without rest.)

9. To be able to sit on the bike for 2 hours without rest. (Most number of minutes I sat in the stationary bike was 90.)

10. To get back into doing Bikram Yoga.

And of course by doing all these, my ultimate goal is to lose my body fat % of which I have no idea what's my current score. (I've set an appointment with the nutritionist on Thursday which I am not looking forward to meeting. Reminds me of the primary school days when we pray hard not to be called to see the dentist because she is an evil witch. But of course my nutritionist isn't anything like that. It's just the vernier calipers that she carries around measuring the fat around your body which makes you feel insecure about yourself for a while. Bah.)

And of course as you already know, there is no such thing as spot reduction. So if you want to lose your body weight or body fat, you gotta work on your whole body and do all the aspects of fitness (I.e. cardio, strength and flexibility) so if you realise (which I just realised as well), my goals are diverse in such a way that they work on the different parts of the body and makes me achieve the 3 aspects too! Yay to an awesome aisyah by year end!

I'm gonna write these goals down and put it on the bedroom wall where I can see it everyday when I wake up. (Also a tip on how to set your goals and how to keep motivated to work towards them.)

It's never too late to review your fitness goals as well. I am motivated to post up my trainings towards these goals so watch this space! ^^

#IWILLWHATIWANT