Setting Your 2024 Goals

I don’t know about you but for me this year has absolutely flown by! Personally it’s been a mixed year of success and failure in terms of keeping my fitness, shape and muscle-building alive. In this blog post I’ll discuss how I plan to make 2024 a more successful one for myself, and how with the right planning, motivation and discipline, you can do the same.

For me, the year started with a brand new, super-gym. I’d decided to leave my current, intimate one with a handful of benches and weights, for a gym the size of a small aircraft carrier! It had a ridiculous number of benches, barbells, training areas, cardio machines and, in theory, should have been perfect. 

Yet something didn’t quite fit for me. It was just too big! To get from the benches to the resistance machines took a good minute’s walk, which I know doesn’t sound like a lot, but when you’re not fully motivated it can seem too long to bother with. Not to mention just how busy (and loud!) it became during peak hours. At times it felt more like a nightclub than a place to train! 

What I’m getting at here is that where you train has to be a place where you’re most comfortable. If it’s not, you may still attend for a short while but eventually with the lack of motivation, you won’t get even close to the goals you’ve set for yourself. 

They say that a change is as good as a rest and that’s definitely been the case since I decided to change back to my original gym. I’ve once again found consistency and feel motivated and excited going into 2024.

As well as ensuring you’re training in the right place, another crucial factor to determine your goals is the right gym wear and clothing you decide to wear. 

Personally speaking, wearing something that shows-off my physique helps to highlight the progress I’ve been making, which in turn, continues to keep my motivation alive. It may sound narcissistic but anything that can make you feel and look good, that makes you feel proud of how far you’ve come, is nothing but a good thing in my eyes. 

In fact I recently purchased a top from adidas that fits absolutely perfectly and when I hit the changing rooms after a solid workout and get a glimpse of myself in the mirror, I’m made-up to see what I look like! This again allows me to stay motivated because I feel good with the gym clothes I’ve chosen to wear, which in turn keeps me coming back for more workouts.

So make sure you wear something that makes you feel proud of your progress and don’t be afraid to make the occasional purchase of some gym wear. At the end of the day you’re investing in yourself when you pay for a gym membership, so the same applies.

Ultimately it comes down to what you honestly want to achieve. Setting an overall 2024 objective and then breakdown how you plan to achieve it. Ask yourself ‘what could go wrong?’ and anticipate this happening so that you can plan in advance for these contingencies i.e. ‘I want to gain 20 pounds of muscle this year, so in order to do that I must go to the gym 3-4 times per week’ – there’s nothing wrong here but you must think ‘how can I be absolutely sure I’ll hit that attendance target? What could get in my way?’ 

Nobody is perfect and perfection isn’t real, so don’t think it’s the end of the world if you fall off track. We all go through that from time to time, but it’s making the small steps on a very regular and consistent basis, that will get you where you want to be. There’s no point in having an incredible gym session once every two weeks and doing nothing in-between. 

So be realistic about what you want to achieve and be honest with yourself in how you plan to achieve it. Also don’t beat yourself up if you aren’t quite hitting what you set out in January, be kind to yourself and think about what you have achieved versus what you’ve done wrong. 

Let’s make 2024 a year to remember, for all the right reasons!

Adam Warren