by Gigi Siguenza

Created on: March 02, 2010

Where There's a Spark, You Can Make Fire

As many a New Year's resolution will demonstrate, it's easy to be inspired to make change. What's hard is turning that inspiration into the motivation needed to take action. For inspiration to become motivation that works, you need three key ingredients: achievable goals, a plan, and support.

* Achievable Goals

One of the biggest mistakes people make when they decide to get fit is setting impossible goals for themselves. Examples of impossible goals would be things like trying to losing a significant amount of weight in a very short time or running a marathon in two weeks after being sedentary for years. Goals such as these are impossible to achieve and setting them is asking for disappointment and discouragement. There is nothing wrong with setting major goals like these, as long as there are realistic expectations of the time it will take to achieve them.

When setting any major goal, staying motivated can be difficult. The trick to staying motivated with a major goal like this is to set smaller mini-goals. Breaking the bigger goal down into smaller, more immediate goals makes it seem less daunting. It also gives you a measure of immediate gratification, which is a key factor in staying motivated.

For example, if the major goal is to lose 50 lbs, set mini-goals to lose 8-10 lbs in 30 days. That's very achievable, as healthy weight loss is an average of 1-3 lbs per week with proper diet and exercise. Imagine how encouraging it would be to come to your 30 day mini-goal and find you've achieved that stepping stone, maybe even surpassed it. Over time, these mini-goals add up, and before you know it, you're at the major goal.

* Plan Ahead

Nothing is more discouraging than feeling like a failure - and expecting to change your lifestyle overnight is setting yourself up to feel like a failure. If you've been sedentary for years and are in poor physical condition, jumping into hour long workouts five days a week is admirable, but it's setting yourself up to quit before you've even begun. Of course you're supposed to push yourself, that's part of the process, but pushing too hard will leave you so sore you'll come to dread the gym and begin finding ways to avoid it. If you start avoiding the gym, you'll never reach your goal.

The best way to avoid this kind of unintentional self-sabotage is to have a plan. Take a realistic look at your current physical condition and schedule, then map out a progressive plan for yourself. Perhaps

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