How to Set Realistic Goals

Introduction:

Setting realistic goals is the foundation of success. While we want everyone to succeed in this specific 16-week competition, we’re more concerned with your 1-year, 2-year, 5-year, etc. progress, as fitness is best treated as a series of gradual improvements. Using the next few months to create achievable goals can massively improve your confidence for keeping small changes in your lifestyle to keep fitness as a part of your life without consuming it.


Why Setting Realistic Goals Matters

The Danger of Unrealistic Expectations

While ambition is great, setting unrealistic goals can leave you with unsustainable methods of achieving your goal or no viable way to achieve it at all. Unrealistic expectations can also foster a negative mindset, making you feel like you’re failing even when you’re making progress. These approaches not only jeopardize your mental-health and lead you to believe you’re not capable.  

By contrast, setting achievable goals that align with your current lifestyle, fitness level, and timeframe ensures you can stick to the plan without compromising other aspects of your life.; you want to push yourself outside your comfort zone, but not so far that you’ll fall back to old ways. Unrealistic goals often force you into extremes that are impossible to sustain long term, setting you up for a cycle of frustration and giving up.

Given the nature of this, this is precisely why we integrate the standard Booty by Bret workouts throughout the competition. Booty by Bret is designed to optimize overall hypertrophy via strength training, so if your goal is to gain muscle, we encourage you to push yourself by pushing yourself to gain strength at a slightly quicker rate than before. Based on the scientific research on muscle hypertrophy, there’s only so much volume you’ll respond to within a given training session, so pushing yourself with excessive volume is unlikely to even yield a significant different result.

Progress happens over time - the cliché of “fitness is a marathon, not a sprint” is spot on, and nobody would dare to sprint a marathon. Each small step forward is a building block for long-term success. Understanding what’s achievable within 16 weeks helps you stay consistent and enjoy the process, which we firmly believe physical fitness should enhance your life, not be determinantal to your mental well-being.


Defining Realistic Goals

Process vs. Outcome Based Goals:

When setting goals, it can be easy to focus on the outcome you’re looking to change or achieve. Whether that be a fat loss, muscle gain, recomp, or even goals outside of fitness, what was once a goal that kept you motivated can quickly turn into a chore or a source of frustration which holds you back. While possibly counterintuitive, make your goals based on the day-to-day processes which will lead you to the outcome, rather than solely focusing on the outcome itself. As an example, if your goal is to lose bodyfat, rather than only paying attention to your weight, center your goals around what will lead to fat loss – improved nutrition tracking/monitoring, improved sleep, better workouts, more daily activity, etc. While this may seem trivial, ordinary deviation in bodyweight won’t be quite as frustrating when you’re stacking win after win in the departments which lead to sustainable fat loss.  

Fat Loss: The Science of Safe & Steady Progress

As outlined in the week 1 article, fat loss should be approached with a moderate pace in mind. Here’s what the research says, but please take into consideration these are weekly averages, so don’t be alarmed if you fall outside this range for a short period of time (it’s not uncommon to lose a lot of bodyweight initially, largely due to reduced glycogen and water retention):

  • Aim to lose 0.5–1% of your total body weight per week. For example, a 150-pound individual can target losing 0.75 to 1.5 pounds weekly.
  • If you’re very lean, expect slower progress; if you’re starting with more body fat, initial losses may be sustainable.
  • Over 16 weeks, a realistic goal is a 5–10% reduction in body weight for most individuals.

If your goal is to lose more than 10% bodyweight, don’t let this discourage you. Try to break the mindset of viewing goals as binary, where you’ve only succeeded once you’ve hit your goal, and you’re failing until that point.

Muscle Gain: A Gradual Process

As outlined in the week 1 article, building muscle takes time, and the rate of growth slows as you gain experience. There’s no strong scientific data outlining this process, but a general trend for women is suggested to be around the following:

  • Beginners can gain .5-1.0 pounds of muscle per month.
  • Intermediates typically gain around 0.25–0.5 pound per month.
  • Advanced lifters typically gain a 1-3lbs per year

Muscle gain tends to feel very slow, and truth be told, it’s very difficult to accurately access just how much muscle you’ve gained. While being quantitative makes goal setting more objective, I much prefer using strength outcomes, and let muscle hypertrophy occur merely as a byproduct.


Creating SMART Goals

Specific:

Define your goals very explicitly. If you’re actively utilizing the Facebook group, you’ll notice the weekly check-ins primarily focus on process-based goals, and as time goes on, outcomes will start to take form. You should still define specific goals for what outcomes you’re looking to achieve, as the process goals will follow. Here’s an example:

  • Outcome Goal: Lose 10lbs in 16-weeks
  • Process Goals:
    • Increase your daily step count average by 500 steps above your current baseline
    • Lift a minimum of twice per week all 16 weeks
    • Reduce liquid calories

Measurable:

While outcome goals are important, focus on measurable mechanisms to keep progress tangible. For example:

  • Measure fat loss through weekly average body weight trends or circumference measurements
  • Use the Booty by Bret workout log or spreadsheet to track your strength
  • Measure consistency of your lifting consistency and/or meal tracking

If you’re someone who is discouraged by the scale, I would avoid using it. However, you have other options with regards to tracking progress. Taking circumference measurements (waist, thigh, arm, hip, etc.), while not entirely precise, can paint a good picture of your overall trend in body composition. Similarly, if any specific number (whether body weight or circumference), you can use a measurement system which doesn’t hold any significance to you (e.g., if being over 170lbs bothers you, if you have a digital scale, you can switch it to kilograms or even British stone).

Action-Oriented:

Rather than only focusing on the end results, prioritize actionable steps that will drive progress. By centering your goals on consistent behaviors, you’ll create a roadmap to success, which will adapt over time (more on this in future articles). For example: 

  • If your goal is fat loss, focus on actions which allow for a sustainable calorie deficit
  • If your goal is to build muscle, aim to break PRs and get sufficient sleep

Break large objectives into smaller, manageable tasks, which you will measure. 

Realistic:

As mentioned extensively throughout the “Defining Realistic Goals” section, you’ll want to ensure your goals are within the realm of being physiological possible/probable and equally as importantly, your current lifestyle and environment. Here are some key factors:

Physiological Possibilities: Goals should be grounded in what’s achievable based on your body’s capacity for change, which is outlined in the aforementioned “Defining Realistic Goals” section.

Lifestyle Factors: Your goals must fit into your current lifestyle and environment. If your schedule is packed, committing to five workouts a week may not be realistic, whereas three focused sessions might work better.

Long-Term Sustainability: Consider whether the changes you’re planning to make can be sustained beyond the 16-week program. If tracking every gram of food feels overwhelming, focus on shifting towards intuitive eating, still loosely monitoring your dietary habits and portions.

Flexibility: Life happens. Build in room for adjustments so you can stay on track without feeling like you’ve failed; if you over consume calories one day, aim to back on track without beating yourself up.

Time-Bound:

With 16 weeks as your defined timeline, break your goals into smaller checkpoints. Weekly or biweekly progress markers will keep you on track and motivated. A large reason we like running this competition for 16 weeks is it’s long enough where you can’t sprint to the finish line, so sustainability will reign supreme, but it’s not so long that it’s out of sight, out of mind.


Takeaway Points

  • Set Your Outcome Goal: Most members already have included this in their form submission. You can reassess if your goal may be a bit too optimistic based on physiological principles.
  • Derive Your Process Goals from Your Outcome Goal: Focus on the measurable daily habits which will lead you to your outcome.
  • Define Clear SMART Goals: Be specific, measurable, and ensure they fit your lifestyle. Center your goals on behaviors, not just outcomes.
  • Focus on Sustainability: Choose goals that fit into your life long-term. Small, gradual changes often lead to the most lasting success.
  • Be Flexible: Build room for adjustments. Progress isn’t linear, and life happens. Making modifications will be necessary for most.
  • Track and Celebrate Progress: Use tools like the BBB workout logs, biometric measurements, biweekly photos, measure improvement and celebrate wins, big or small.

Actionable Takeaway

  1. Check Your Outcome Goal: Ensure your goal is realistic, and redefine it as needed
  2. Derive Your Process Goals: Break your goals down into their substituent parts and shift your mental focus on achieving these goals, allowing the outcome to come as a byproduct  
  3. Break Down Your Goals: Split the 16 weeks into smaller checkpoints, setting weekly or biweekly targets (with the cognizance that progress isn’t linear) to stay on track.
  4. Track Progress: Use the log to record workouts, an app or pen & paper to track nutrition & biometrics. Check your trends weekly and adjust as needed.
  5. Prepare for Challenges: Identify potential obstacles and prepare ahead of time (both in your mentality and your planning)
  6. Celebrate Wins: At the end of each week, reflect on what went well and reward yourself for consistency.