First of all, why do we set goals in the first place?!
Goals are important because setting them, and creating a process to achieve them, can help you put extra effort into your training sessions and can keep you motivated. Having a goal with a time-frame can help you push through feeling too tired to go to the gym, as you know you've got a deadline. They also serve as a huge confidence boost when you achieve them.
So we know goals can help us achieve more, and serve to motivate us, but you need to give your goals a lot of thought.
Too often people will set themselves goals that they really don't care about that much. There are loads of goals that people set just because 'everyone else sets goals like these, so I will too'. Don't just pluck random numbers out of thin air and say 'I want to lose 5kg' or 'I want to add '10kg to my deadlift'. You need a reason why.
Trying to set goals without knowing why you want to achieve them is a great way to fail before you've even started.
So how do you set good fitness goals?
Let's go with a weight loss goal of losing 5kg.
So you want to lose a specific amount of weight, that's great. But do you want to lose 5kg of fat? 5kg of muscle? Lose 10kg of fat and gain 5kg of muscle? All of these things result in you being 5kg lighter.
But the real question here is: how will this make you happier?
Here's a few examples; you might feel uncomfortable in your body or your clothes might feel a bit too tight and will feel more confident if they're more loose, you might have a history of medical issues and want to prevent them, you want to feel more attractive, or maybe you just want to push your body to the limits.
If you don't know why a goal is going to improve your quality of life or make you happier then what's going to drive you to achieve it?
When you're setting goals, think about how they're going to actually affect you. Once you find a good enough reason to set a goal, you're already a few steps toward achieving it.