Write Down Your Goals
If you want to make progress and be continuously motivated, setting realistic goals is one of the best motivators.
Many trainees are highly motivated when they begin with a fitness program, but often give up after just a short while. In the long run the absence of clear goals hampers the development of your body.
Long Term Goals
This really consists of the image of your body held on to in your mind over a longer period of time.
Visualize your entire body - your arms, legs, chest, shoulders and back - and try to form an image of how you want your body to look. Picture yourself in excellent condition walking along the beach or - if you are a woman - at a party in a sexy evening gown.
The point is to visualize yourself as you want yourself to look ideally. Hold on to this image, because it is your long-term training goal.
Short Term Goals
These consist of the realistic and measurable intermediate goals you have to set yourself. Here we are concerned with concrete and measurable goals such as: within the next 3 months I want to lose 10 kg of fat, or within the next 8 weeks I want to gain 2 kg in muscle mass.
It is important not to set unrealistic goals. Please note also that the experience of others does not always apply to your own particular situation. Your own training experience and starting point will ultimately determine how realistic your goals are.
After having trained for a longer period of time, experience will have taught you how to set more realistic goals. Eventually you will reach the point where you are able to more or less control the development of your body.
From that moment on you can begin to introduce different phases in your workout schedules. For example, effecting seasonal weight gain (muscle mass build-up) in autumn and winter and weight loss (loss of fat without loss of muscle mass) in spring for the summer.