Lesson 4: Staying Motivated, Setting Goals, Measuring Progress
Setting Goals and Measuring Progress
The goals you set out to achieve in walking come in all shapes and sizes. Typical reasons that people normally start walking is wanting to improve health or fitness and wanting to lose weight. As you get more involved in walking, you may find yourself setting other goals such as wanting to complete a walk of a certain distance, wanting to be able to walk a mile at a faster speed or wanting to walk a certain number of miles per month (or year).
When we set goals, it is important to make them achievable. It's wonderful to have a big goal, but if you do, it's useful to have smaller goals that get you closer to the bigger goal. For example, if you decide you want to complete a walking marathon, your first goal might be to complete a 5K or a 10K event. Then you could participate in a half-marathon. It's much easier to go for the marathon, once you have succeeded in doing the smaller races.
Another example is having a goal of losing a large amount of weight. It may be easier to focus on the first ten pounds. If your goals is weight loss, then it is advised that you walk about an hour a day. Many find it helpful, to focus on time goals or distance goals rather than the weight loss goal which will happen over time. In other words, weight will come off at whatever rate it comes off, but if you focus on being able to walk longer distances, or you have a goal of walking at least 5 days per week, then the weight loss, though it is a primary goal, ends up being a kind of fringe benefit.
Whatever goals you set, you need to decide how you will measure them. Is it completing the marathon? Is it losing a number of pounds? Sometimes when we develop muscle, we can actually gain weight while we become thinner and shrink in size. A better assessment of your progress would be having your body fat measured.
In Lesson 2, we discussed three basic tests that you can self-administer every month or so. You can repeat these tests. By repeating these tests over time, you may find that you find it much easier to do certain activities, like carrying bags of groceries or walking up flights of steps.
What happens when you achieve your goals? Most people find it useful to set new ones. A goal does not have to be a particular measurement. A goal can be related to the quality of your walks. You could have the goal of taking one hiking vacation a year. Or raising $5,000 for your favorite charity. Or feeling a greater sense of connectedness to the earth. You may even take up bird watching and use your walks to spot new species of birds. It's all up to you!
