Dig this, nowadays without a goal, you are nothing. The first step to reaching that sense of accomplishment is to set goals. I am not talking about “go to the gym” or “lose weight”, those are not goals. Come on, I’m talking about “real” goals. Something like “bench press 225 pounds” or “lose 20 pounds of fat”, now those are real goals. One would argue with a lot of “but’s” like “but my right shoulder was dislocated 20 years ago and I had to be treated with gamma radiation, which later caused mutations, and now my two shoulder blades are fused together so I can’t bench press a single pound, let alone 225 pounds…blah, blah, blah”. Let me break down the news for you, with an attitude like that, you will not set any goals and you will not accomplish anything.
Without a real goal at the gym, you will be walking around aimlessly doing whatever exercise you feel like, or using whatever machine or weights with the fewest line-up. You’re doing all this because you’re lazy and you have no clue why you are in the gym to begin with. Now you lift weights for a few days, and then you forget that the gym exists for the next few days, or weeks maybe. You decide to remember the gym when the strength you gained from the few days you hit the gym completely runs out. At that point, you will have to start from scratch and you go into a never-ending cycle of recognizing and abandoning the gym. Eventually, you will quit because you will not be seeing any progress since you had no initial “real” goal.
A very important thing to keep in mind is that fitness is a long-term goal which requires a lot of time, dedication, and consistency. You start out by setting a “real” goal, followed by a plan of action, and you work on your plan of action until the determined goal is attained. Setting a timeframe such as “achieve goal in 3 months” might also help. Consider it as a challenge that has no room for quitters. After many months and years of working on your goal you will be standing in the gym all tired and ask yourself “What am I doing here?” The correct answer is “I’m working on benching 225 pounds”. If your answer at that point consists of a confused statement such as “I don’t know”, then you’re doing it all wrong. The gym is not a place for hesitation and confusion. It is a place for goal-oriented action. The key here is to realize that even though there’s no way you can bench 225 pounds, but if you do, you will be a hardcore mofo! And the next thing you know, you are benching 225 pounds.
No matter how aspiring your goal is, there is only way to achieve it is one extra 2.5 plate at a time. One more rep at a time. One second faster at a time. One minute longer at a time. This is why we follow a constant progression of incremental increases of stress on our bodies until our bodies achieve the desired adaptation along with the highly-anticipated sense of accomplishment.
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