When it comes to our health and fitness we often set goals. Whether that’s to run a certain distance, get a PB or be a certain weight. These relate to what you want to get, have, achieve, own or complete.

These goals can be incredibly effective to aid behaviour change. They can motivate you and they provide a way of monitoring progress.

Challenges with setting goals

However, there are a number of challenges with relying purely on goals for motivation:

Goals do not provide you with any reward until you actually achieve them. They often feel too far into the future - if the process itself isn’t rewarding, the goal may not be enough to sustain you.

A new goal must be set each time we achieve one. This requires constant re-evaluation, which may be exciting for some, but hard-going if you are lacking in time or energy.

Goals do not provide guidance on how to respond when we face setbacks. If the journey towards a goal becomes challenging, it can be easy to give up if the goal is the only thing providing us with a sense of progress.

Staying motivated when goals aren’t enough

In addition to setting goals, it is therefore useful to become clear about your values. Values relate to how you want to behave; the qualities you want to bring to your actions on an ongoing basis. Right now, in this moment, and in the foreseeable future.

They are different to goals in that values cannot be ‘reached’ or ‘completed’. Instead, they are:

• Never finished, completed or done
• How you want to behave right now
• How you want to behave every step of the way as you pursue your goals
• How you want to behave if and when you achieve your goals
• How you want to behave if and when you don’t achieve your goals

What are your values?

In short, values are how you want to behave as a human being. Both towards yourself and others.

There are many different values, and here is an activity to help you figure yours out. You can do this for any area of life but since we are all about movement, we suggest doing this activity with your health in mind:

Complete this values exercise

Once you’ve completed the exercise, have a think about how you might bring those values into the present with your current actions. How can you take small steps each day that move you towards the values that underpin your goals?