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Fitness goal setting with SWEAT

This is an excerpt from Partner Workouts by Krista Popowych.

Businesses are familiar with the process of going through a SWOT analysis to determine how they stand in the marketplace or against their competitors. The SWOT acronym stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.

With your partner, analyze yourselves using a SWEAT. Instead of listing opportunities and threats, focus on Strengths, Weaknesses, Excuses, Aspirations, and Targets. Each partner performs an individual SWEAT, and then one together. First, list your own three to five strengths as they relate to your fitness and health goals or your personal fitness journey (e.g., I am great at push-ups; I have strong leg muscles; I am great at staying committed to a training partner). Then list three to five weaknesses (e.g., I have poor posture; my abs are weak; I snack too much in the evenings). Next, list three to five excuses for not achieving your goals (e.g., I get bored after a few weeks of exercises; I get overwhelmed in September when school starts; I have a shoulder injury that I worry about). Then list your three top aspirations. What are your fitness, health or wellness hopes, dreams, and desires? How do you want to feel or look? What do you want to achieve through this process? And lastly, set three targets. These targets should take your excuses into consideration, and create a plan to overcome those roadblocks. Most importantly, your targets are your small and large goals, and your achievement deadline. See appendix B for a SWEAT Self-Worksheet to log your responses.

Once each partner has gone through the process, connect and discuss each point together. By sharing with your workout buddy, you voice your weaknesses or fears, you strengthen your commitment, and you create your goal statement. Accountability is the key to success and putting it out there to a partner or workout buddy boosts the probability for greater success.

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