How many times have you heard it? “I’ll do everything I have to so I can reach my goals!” Or, what about, “I’ll reach my goal at any cost!”

Any cost?

Make sure you set your goal to improve and reward your success!

There are many people who believe in the, ‘No Pain, No Gain’, philosophy. They believe they must suffer for anything they truly want, or they don ‘t have a big enough goal or what they want must not be pushing them hard enough.

Working with a personal trainer or coach could help you towards your goals while keeping you away from this dangerous spiral. Having someone to help keep you accountable yet safe is priceless, especially if you tend to push yourself harder than you should.

How Giving Your All is Damaging Your Future Success

             1.  Setting unrealistic goals sets you up for unrealistic milestones – When we set unrealistic goals we are setting ourselves up for either disappointment or we are pushing our bodies too hard. This will lead to injury, burnout or other negative results.

             2. Over-training and injury are inevitable – Consistently over-training and pushing too hard, eliminates our ability to recover. Recovery is vital and without it your body will continue to breakdown and injury will result.

             3. Burnout – This becomes a result of over-training and neglecting rest. We spiral due to the amount of effort given and can end up sick, injured, or unmotivated to go through any similar process in the future.

             4. Avoidance of new goals and achievement – In turn, our mind’s thought and recollection any time we set a new goal, so we avoid setting goals and going through the process again in the future.

How to Keep This from Happening

It’s important to ask yourself qualifying questions throughout the process of reaching any goal. It is also important to stay flexible. Allow yourself the ability to adjust and re-work your goals when necessary.

             1. Is my goal realistic?

             2. Is my time-frame realistic?

             3. Am I over-training?

             4. Am I allowing for proper recovery?

             5. Is my goal worth the sacrifices I am making?

Working with the right personal trainer, or coach, can help you keep yourself in check. They can, and will, hold you accountable to the answers of these questions.

Personal trainers can also help you ensure that you are not over-training or getting yourself into more than you can handle. Working with the right personal trainer can also help you set goals from the start that will help you reach your maximum potential in a reasonable manor.

The Truth

It’s easy to go through the motions of any self-reflective exercise and tell yourself what you want to hear. You must answer these questions for yourself and you must to it regularly and honestly.

Whether you chose to work with a personal trainer or not, it is important that you are honest with yourself and your personal trainer, if you have one, so you can avoid the negative outcomes that are there.

Be honest. Be real. If you are sacrificing too much, pushing too hard, and risking injury; then the goal isn’t worth what you’re giving up.

Train smart. Stay Healthy.