Non-Aesthetic Goals

If you only have aesthetic goals there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Whatever motivates you to get exercising can only be a good thing in my opinion, whether that’s aesthetics, performance, vengeance… whatever gets you moving. The thing about aesthetic goals though is that they can usually take a while to achieve if they involve a big transformation, and progress is rarely linear.

Some weeks you’ll feel like you’ve made huge progress, some weeks you’ll feel like you’ve gone backwards. You’ll get there if you keep working at it and stay consistent, but it won’t always be smooth sailing. If that sounds familiar to you, and you’re starting to feel the motivation waning, it might be time to consider adding some non-aesthetic goals to the mix as well.

It keeps training fun

When I’m training I’m keeping my performance goals front and centre of my mind. I’m competing with myself on virtually every lift. I know that I probably can’t lift more every week on every lift, but I know every few weeks I can, and when I start a new programme I’m setting myself targets for what I want to lift on each exercise for next time.

If I was just to train for aesthetics only, I don’t think I’d get the same amount of enjoyment from training. I wouldn’t be bothered about lifting more or rowing faster. I’d just go through the motions and as such my output would probably be less too. I’m not saying there’s no enjoyment in doing just high rep training with a sole focus on aesthetics, but for me and most of the people I train, there’s more fun in going after performance targets at the same time.

Sense of achievement  

I have a long list of my performance goals, I put them down in this article. Some of them I completed fairly quickly, some are ongoing. The longer it takes and the harder I have to work to get it, the bigger the sense of achievement. That’s not to say all your goals should be massive and take you a year to achieve- there should be a mix.

Try creating a list of performance goals you want to work towards that vary in time and commitment to achieve. Some could be things you’ve achieved in the past and that you’d like to get back to, like a squat weight or a 5km time, and some could be things that you really, really want to be able to do, like chin ups or a half marathon.

As you knock them off, it makes the journey rewarding and gives you a sense of achievement every time. They help you train harder too, especially when you don’t feel like it, which is why...Strength translates outside of the gym too- it’s not like you’ll only be strong when you lift a barbell. By training movement patterns you enable your body to recruit more muscle fibres for other jobs outside of the gym, such as lifting up kids or moving furniture. The stronger you are the better you can live your life without fear of injury and the more enabled you are to perform heavy-lifting tasks independently. And it’s also loads of fun chucking heavy weights around in the gym.

They can often complement your aesthetic goals

Performance goals can often complement your aesthetic goals, so long as they’re not completely disparate. If you want to gain 20lbs of muscle, your performance goals would do well to be around power and strength rather than long feats of cardiovascular endurance. For fat loss goals you can actually have pretty much any performance goal, you can get loads stronger whilst getting lighter, no problem.

Performance goals keep the journey fun, and they give you micro and macro goals to tick off as you go. They make you work harder, they give you another reason not to miss training, and to make sure you actually ‘turn up’ when you’re there rather than just go through the motions. At the end of the day it’s hard to look very fit without being fit, and it’s hard to be very fit without looking fit.

I’ve learned over the years that you can’t (and shouldn’t) tell people what goals they should want to achieve, because they need to be personally motivating to the individual. That being said, if you enjoy exercise and you don’t have any performance goals, it might be time to consider defining some for yourself. Think of what you’d like to be able to do or get better at, and get after it. It can make the whole journey so much more enjoyable.