You may recall I previously spoke about how everything starts with ‘why’ and how an experienced coach or weight loss expert can help you figure out the answers to this difficult question.

So you’ve figured out the real reason why you want to train. The next step is to put in place a strategy that will be your blueprint for success in your fitness or weight loss goals. As part of this process you need to look at the obstacles that could potentially lie in your path as you try to follow your blueprint for success.

You need to ask yourself – what don’t I see?

One of my former mentors was Keith Cunningham the original Rich Dad, from the Robert Kiyosaki book – Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Keith acted as a chairman of a board of directors for me. He provided optics for me as a business owner and he would always ask me the question…

WHAT DON’T I SEE?

Where could this business plan go wrong?

You see, as a business owner or gym goer who is starting on their fitness or weight loss goals, you fall in love with the fantasy that everything will go rosy on your journey.

You don’t ask where can your plan go wrong?

That’s where I provide the optics for my clients.

I continually ask them where are the pitfalls that might prevent you from achieving your  fitness or weight-loss goals?

With new clients I’ll often help them break this down into a blueprint for success that’s easy to follow. I get them to write down the possible obstacles and follow this with a copying strategy to overcome the obstacle. We then ask, who are the people you need to support you and what is the implementation date for each of these new strategies.

A typical scenario might go something like this:

Obstacle: Lack of Training knowledge.

Strategy to overcome the obstacle: Meet with your coach to design your plan, review exercise technique, training frequency, and methods

Obstacle: Time.

Strategy to overcome the obstacle: Schedule my training in advance. For example, Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 9.30am.

Obstacle: Don’t know what to eat.

Strategy to overcome the obstacle: Write my meal plan in advance. Verify food choices with my coach, purchase foods from a set list when I go shopping and reverse engineer the goal.

Obstacle: Financial Concerns – I cannot afford a trainer 

Strategy to overcome the obstacle: Review your expenditure in an audit form. Look at areas in particular where you are leaking money – the ‘latte factor’, alcohol, biscuits and other ways in which you are carelessly spending your money. Instead invest these finances in your health.

Obstacle: Back/knee pain.

Strategy to overcome the obstacle: See physical therapist, perform stretches and rehab exercises designed by your coach for 10 minutes each day.

Obstacle: Mid-term break.

Strategy to overcome the obstacle: Organise babysitter to cover me for my training times on Monday, Wednesday, Friday. On days when that is not possible, train at home performing a body-weight workout.

Obstacle: Social nights out.

Strategy to overcome the obstacle: Drive to nights out, or recruit a friend for social support.

There are many more but the idea of this is to look at where things could possibly go wrong and then find ways, in advance, that allow you to cope with these challenging situations.

The final stages mean you need to look at the strategies and look at who the people are who will enable you to overcome your obstacles.

As you can see this is hard work! And if you are saying you don’t have the time to do this, I’m afraid you will find success hard to come by when the going gets tough.

A plan should be strategic and I have shown you here a blueprint for success in your health goals for 2017.

What I’ve found, through many years of experience, is that clients are often better off lifting a pen rather than a dumbbell at this time of year.