Goal Setting is Crucial for Fitness Clients – Here’s Why

While studying Sport Psychology many years ago, an anonymous passage from the course textbook [ref 1] stuck with me. Here’s the passage:

A Sense of Direction

When you don’t know what is important,
then everything is important.

When everything is important,
then you have to do everything.

When you have to do everything,
you don’t have time to think about what is really important!

Despite claims that technology was going to make our lives more leisurely, we seem to be busier than ever. With a multitude of demands on our time we tend to drift from activity to activity, putting out fires as we go, doing what we need to do in order to get by.

Quite often we lack direction and focus. We’re not aiming for anything in particular after all, just surviving the daily grind and hopefully enjoying a few things along the way.

Goals help to provide purpose to our actions. They are the mental representations of desired outcomes that we have thought about, prioritised over others, and expressed a commitment to achieve. Goals are an expression of what is important, and worthy of a significant investment of time and effort.

In this article we’ll look at:

• Why goal setting is important
• Whether or not goal setting is effective
• What characteristics make goals more likely to be achieved
• How you can set ‘SMARTER’ goals for you and your clients.

Is goal setting important for fitness clients?

In the article Exercise Behaviour is More Important than Just Working Out we highlighted a major challenge for the fitness industry. Namely, that the attendance of new members tends to drop off significantly within the first 4-6 weeks of joining a club when they are trying to make their intentions (lose weight, get fit, get healthier) come to fruition.

The challenge is that no matter how good the new member’s intentions are, when motivation drops as it inevitably does, these intentions give way to the mass of other priorities in their busy lives.

New members need help to build an exercise behaviour – and goal setting is a core component of this.

Pioneers in the field, Edwin Locke and Gary Latham [ref 2] report that; the process of setting goals facilitates behaviour change by guiding an individual’s attention and efforts and increasing persistence towards obtaining a specified level of proficiency. Goal setting helps to create a sense of urgency, motivating people to focus on and exert effort to reduce the discrepancy between their current situation and their desired state.

Without being helped to set goals and monitor progress, a new member misses out on having their motivation focused on a desired state. Urgency towards achieving that state isn’t created, and progress towards that state goes unnoticed. The new member lacks guidance on where and how to exert their effort.

Without appropriate goal setting, it’s not surprising that so many well-intentioned new members drop out.

Does goal setting actually work?

Most of us who work in fitness are convinced that goal setting works…but does it? And if it does work – do we actually know what aspects are most effective?

Surprisingly, there are very few large-scale studies that have investigated this question. I found one though…

In 2015 a systematic review and meta-analysis (a study of studies) investigated the effectiveness of goal setting interventions for changing physical activity (PA) behaviours. [ref 3] The analysis compared studies where participants set PA goals and their subsequent PA was compared to control groups where PA goals were not set. Almost 6,000 subjects were included in the study which analysed 45 randomised controlled trials (RCTs).

The analysis concluded that goal setting interventions represent an effective method of fostering PA across a diverse range of populations and settings. A moderate effect size was observed. This suggests that while effective and important, there’s more to building PA behaviours than just goal setting alone.

We need to note here that the interventions used across the RCTs in the analysis didn’t necessarily utilise the goal setting characteristics we consider to be most effective. We will discuss that later.

To pre-frame, goal setting is likely to be even more effective when we take it seriously and utilise the characteristics that make it most effective.

Goal setting is effective for all participants, especially if they’re actively involved in the process 

The analysis also revealed some interesting additional findings. Namely, that goal setting interventions were effective irrespective of:

• whether goal setting was delivered in-person, via technology, or a combination of both
• the age, gender, weight, health status and activity status of the participants
• who prescribed the goal – the participant themselves, the interventionist (fitness practitioner), or via collaboration.

In short, goal setting is effective for a broad range of participants. Participants can be encouraged to set their own goals and technology can be incorporated into the goal setting process (useful to know in case we get hit by more lock-downs)!

The analysis also found that:

• Interventions were most effective when goals were set in relation to daily PA, or a combination of daily and weekly PA. Effectiveness deteriorated when goals were only set for weekly (less frequent) objectives
• Participants derived significant benefit when goals were set at the start of an intervention/ program and were able to be modified on a weekly, or bi-weekly basis
• It was clearly beneficial for participants when they:
  • Were actively involved in strategic planning for how to achieve their goals
  • Received feedback regarding progress towards their goals.

In short, to be most effective, goals need to be modifiable, oriented on more frequent behaviours, feedback must be provided, and participants must be actively involved in planning the pathway to goal achievement.

What characteristics make goals more likely to be achieved?

Psychological researchers Mann et al. [ref 4] note that there are several characteristics of goals that make them more likely to be achieved. Of particular relevance to health and fitness are:

• the motivational orientation of the goal (approach vs avoidance)
• the level of difficulty (easy vs challenging)
• the goal type (performance vs mastery)
• the term of the goal (long-term vs short-term).

1. Approach vs avoidance goals

Goals can be oriented towards achieving desired outcomes or avoiding unwanted outcomes. For example, ‘I’m going to attend four exercise classes this week’ vs ‘I’m going to become less sedentary’.

Because approach goals are geared towards reducing the distance between current and desired state, they have a definite criterion for success. In contrast, avoidance goals are oriented on increasing the distance between a current and desired state. As such, their criterion for success is less obvious. In the previous example, a person could become less sedentary, but they could also become more sedentary. The approach goal is more obvious – did the person attend four exercise classes or not?

Approach goals tend to be more effective than avoidance goals, so one strategy is to transform avoidance goals into approach goals. For example, ‘I’m going to avoid unhealthy food snacks this week’ could become ‘For snacks this week I’m going to have a piece of fruit and glass of water’.

2. Challenging vs easy goals

Research in this area is somewhat contentious! We’ve tended to emphasise the importance of making goals ‘realistic’ and to not be overly ambitious. Some research challenges this and suggests that less realistic goals may actually inspire rather than compromise goal pursuit.

In the case of desirable but less attainable ‘dream’ goals, people may in fact act in ways that make the goal more attainable. This might include increasing their commitment to an exercise programme by completing it more often and/or improving their diet to make it more conducive to the dream goal.

We’ll come back to this point shortly.

3. Performance (outcome) vs mastery (process) goals

When individuals attempt to achieve a performance goal (e.g., Bench Press 100kg) their focus is on documenting their ability. Consequently, short-term setbacks on the path to goal achievement are attributed to their ability being inadequate. This tends to reduce self-efficacy and often results in people giving up their goal pursuit.

In contrast, when individuals pursue a mastery goal (e.g., ‘complete 3 upper body resistance training sessions this week and eat good sources of carbs and protein’) they focus on improving their ability to perform a skill. Setbacks are perceived as learning opportunities regarding how best to acquire the skill.

Mastery goals tend to promote self-efficacy and lead to more successful goal pursuit than performance goals.

4. Long-term vs short-term goals

With regard to the length of the goal, the important point to understand is that long-term and short-term goals are complimentary. These goals need to be used in combination, rather than exclusively.

Long-term goals relate to the persons dream or ultimate objective. They help to provide direction. In contrast, short-term goals refer more to the steps or processes required to move towards those dream goals.

So, in relation to whether goals need to be ‘realistic’, it’s OK for long-term dream goals to be ambitious as long as the short-term goals are realistic. And in relation to performance vs mastery, it’s OK to have a long-term performance-oriented goal as long as there are short-term (process/mastery) goals oriented on building the skills required to make the long-term goal ‘achievable’

What is the SMART framework?

At NZIHF, we’ve been promoting the SMART goal setting framework in our Personal Training course for a while now. ‘SMART’ is a helpful acronym that covers the characteristics that need to be addressed when constructing goals, in particular short-term goals.

For fitness clients and gym members, SMART goals need to be:

1. Specific – the goal must be specific or relevant to the person and their objectives
2. Measurable – the goal must have a number so that it’s success can be quantified
3. Achievable – the goal must be under the direct control of the person (success or failure cannot be dependent on a third party)
4. Realistic – the goal must be challenging for the person, without being impossible
5. Time bound – the goal must have a target date for its completion so that adherence to the goal can be measured. This date needs to create a sense of urgency to focus the persons attention. The date can’t be so far in the future that actions to achieve the goal can be postponed or allow procrastination.

Here’s an example of a SMART goal for a new gym member who wants to bench press 100kg. Benching 100kg is currently a dream goal for this client as they have just started resistance training; they currently bench 20kg.

SMART goal: Starting Monday (03/07/2022) I aim to complete my resistance training program three times a week for the entire month of July.

You can see that the goal is:

1. Relevant to the persons reason for exercising and their dream goal
2. Time-bound and can be measurable – 3 sessions per week for 1 month = 12 sessions if the goal is achieved
3. Achievable and realistic – as long as the person is able to fit three sessions in every week for the month of July.

How do you set SMARTER goals?

SMART is certainly a useful framework when it comes to goal setting; its simple and allows a goal to be easily checked for consistency against the SMART criteria.

However, there are two important elements missing which relate to the need for goals to be modifiable, and for clients to receive feedback.

To be most effective, goals need to be SMARTER. They must incorporate two additional processes:

1. Evaluate – progress towards goals must be regularly reviewed so a person can receive feedback on their progress. It is motivational in and of itself to know that progress is being made. Additionally, evaluation enables problems and solutions to be identified quickly and early to aid progress.
2. Refine – depending on the evaluation process, goals must be refined on a regular basis to suit the evolving needs, wants, and capabilities of the person involved.

Goal setting is an active learning process. It’s not something that is done once, begrudgingly, and forgotten about.

Gym members or new exercisers must be helped to set SMART goals. Once set, these goals should be reviewed and refined on a weekly or bi-weekly basis at least, for the first 2-3 months of their training. This enables progress to be made, motivation to be focused, and an exercise habit to be built.

Whilst building a habit, goals will focus more on attendance, than adherence to an exercise prescription. As we discussed in Exercise Behaviour is More Important than Just Working Out ‘Turning up’ really is the most important thing for new exercisers. It’s much easier to turn up if there’s a defined reason to do so.

With regard to goal setting in general, in the wise words of The Equalizer (Denzel Washington) ‘It’s about progress not perfection’.

Summary – tips for goal setting success

To take full advantage of goal setting here are our top 5 tips:

1. Use goal setting to provide focus, direction and purpose to your training, or the training of your clients
2. Review goal progress on a regular basis and refine the goals you set to better suit the participant
3. Use short-term process/mastery goals as a staircase towards more ambitious dream goals
4. Use the ‘SMARTER’ framework as a guide to help build your goal setting skills
5. Celebrate the successful achievement of every goal. Even if it’s only a pat on the pack or a high five – notice, acknowledge and celebrate success!

References

1. Hodge, K. (1994). Sport motivation: Training your mind for peak performance.

2. Locke & Latham. (2002). Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task motivation. A 35-year odyssey. The American Psychologist, 57(9), 705-717. https://doi.org/10.1037//0003-066X.57.9.705

3. McEwen et al. (2015). The effectiveness of multi-component goal setting interventions for changing physical activity behaviour: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Health Psychology Review, 10(1), 67-88. https://doi.org/10.1080/17437199.2015.1104258

4. Mann et al. (2013). Self-regulation of health behavior: Social psychological approaches to goal setting and goal striving. Health Psychology, 32(5), 487-498. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0028533