Goal Setting for Weight Loss: How to Turn Failure into Success



Having little or no success with goal setting for weight loss? The following tool will be great inspiration. I recently read this wonderful article called "The Formula for Failure and Success” by Jim Rohn in one of my favourite magazines called Success Magazine.

What is truly astounding about this article is that he points out that the recipe for failure is the same recipe for success.

What?!?!? How could it be that simple?

Although you can use the contents in the article by Jim Rohn to any area in your life, I chose to focus on the health aspect because so many people struggle with achieving goal setting for weight loss. After reading this piece of writing it will hopefully shed some light as to how easy it is to make a shift in your overall health and wellness.

Jim Rohn points out that “failure is nothing more than a few errors in judgment repeated every day”. He goes on further to say “on their own, our daily acts do not seem that important. A minor oversight, a poor decision, or a wasted hour doesn’t result in an instant and measurable impact”.

In other words a single day skipping a workout will not have an immediate impact on your life, however, if you continue to repeat the same activity everyday you will lose sight of your fitness goals.


There are two main reasons why people fail with his or her goal setting for weight loss:

1. The first one is that after a couple of good eating days (i.e. avoiding junk and filling up on only wholesome foods) you might slip and end up eating half of bag of cookies. Feeling doomed you might conclude that you will never have the discipline to eat healthy based on that one bad day. Thus, you give up and resume to your poor eating habits. 2. The second reason we tend to fail at goal setting for weight loss, is that we start a routine expecting to see immediate results. For example, we might start a workout habit that requires exercising an hour a day in the morning. Although you feel better after 2 weeks you go to weigh yourself and your weight has not changed. You instantly think to yourself “forget it! It’s not worth the blood, sweat and tears!” You immediately resort back to your couch potato lifestyle. Just like Rome was not build in a day, you did not become overweight in a weekend.

With that said, if we apply Jim Rohn’s theory that the recipe to success requires repeating the same behaviour over a period of time, will in turn achieve our goals. Remember this is also the same recipe for failure when repeating the same negative action over a period of time.


Don’t believe me? I have personally experienced this myself.

When I first started goal setting for weight loss I focused on exercising regularly I did not see any results at first. I decided to continue working out despite this because my energy level increased and it put me in a great mood. I was hoping that eventually I would see some results and I was right. When I started running into family and friends that I don’t see on a regular basis they would comment on how toned I became. I did not believe them at first because I had not noticed that all the small changes were adding up. But when it’s done slowly, which is the proper way since you are more likely to stick to it long-term, you will successfully achieve your goals!

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