It’s the beginning of a new year. (Yay, Captain Obvious!) People from all walks of life are making their “New Year’s resolutions”. Some people are looking to break into a new career, or just to find a job (Thank you, Mr President). Some people are planning on getting out of debt, or planning on reading a book a month. All of these are great goals, but perhaps the most popular goal is to “get in shape”.

In America, “getting in shape” is a popular New Years resolution, but obviously it isn’t achieved nearly as often. And perhaps there’s a reason for that – people set bad goals. No, I’m not saying getting into shape is a bad goal. I’m saying that the goal is too vague. It makes more sense to have a specific goal in mind. “Lose weight” doesn’t even make sense to me. Lose weight? Like… muscle? fat? water? Saying “I want to lose weight” is like going to the grocery store and saying “I’d like 5 pounds”. 5 pounds of what? Goals need to be specific.

I also found that having a visual goal is important. Find a celebrity who has the body you want. Don’t go nuts and think that you need to look exactly like them, but find someone your height, your frame, and imagine having their body. It helps a lot if you have an image in your mind  of what you want to look like. It keeps you motivated, and allows you to mark your progress against where you’re going, instead of where you’re coming from.

For me this was a little different. I never set a new year’s resolution; I just made a conscious decision that I was going to (note: not wanted to – going to) gain a lot of muscle. My end goal was Vin Diesel. We’re about the same height, same frame, but he was a lot bigger than I was. So, I set that goal in my mind, and after a couple years and 50 lbs of muscle I achieved my goal. I was the size of Vin Diesel.

Part II (on specifics goals for weight training) coming soon.