The Outcome and The Process: How to Set Effective Goals

You probably know that setting goals is an essential part of any fitness or lifestyle change. Unfortunately, many people who set goals fail to achieve them.

It’s not enough to just decide on a goal, you need to set effective goals. Here, I’ll share with you a goal-setting method that sets you up for a lifetime of better fitness and better health.

I'll let you in on the secret right up front: The key is to make an extremely important mindset shift: focus on the process, not the outcome.

Rather than setting goals to achieve results, set goals that will help you become a better exerciser (or a healthier eater, or a better sleeper…). Like many mindset shifts, this might seem trivial but it will make all the difference.

The Outcome vs. The Process

There are two types of goals: outcome goals and process goals. Outcome goals are the result you want to achieve. An outcome goal could be gaining 5 pounds of muscle, running a 5K, or being able to do 10 push ups.

Process goals are the daily or weekly steps you need to take to achieve your outcome goal. Think of process goals like habits or activities that you build over time.

A process goal could be to go running for 20 minutes, 3 times per week. Outcome goals are what you plan to achieve, and process goals are how you're going to achieve it.

Outcome goals are important, but process goals are your secret weapon. They should be your main focus. The idea is to stack up little wins by achieving one small process goal at a time, then building on them.

Why Are Process Goals So Important?

As much as I wish this wasn't true, you can't always control your results. Everyone's body responds differently, and there are so many factors involved your fitness and how your body looks and moves.

What you can control, though, is your actions, your behaviors, and your choices. In other words, you can control your process goals.

Process goals help you build intrinsic motivation and consistency. Intrinsic motivation is motivation that comes from within, and that drives you to keep doing something because you want to and because you enjoy it.

Building intrinsic motivation for healthy habits is probably the most important skill you can achieve, and process goals can help you with that.

A major factor in developing intrinsic motivation is “competency”.  Competency means feeling confident in your ability to exercise and achieve your goals.

A lot of people find exercise difficult and don’t feel confident about doing it. That’s totally understandable. Exercise is a skill. It’s not something that comes naturally to everyone, it takes time and practice to get good at it.

It’s important to build your exercise confidence because once you do feel that you are good at exercising, you're much more likely to do it consistently. Stacking up little wins by achieving one small process goal at a time builds that confidence.

Some Science On Goal-Setting

Research has found that people who set process goals had more intrinsic motivation and were better able to stick to their exercise program long-term than people who didn’t set goals at all.

That’s no surprise, but those people even did better at sticking to their exercise program than people who only set outcome goals. People who set only outcome goals also increased their motivation in that study, but it was short-lived.

The outcome goals alone didn’t help them stick to their program for the long run, and people who set only outcome goals also reported feeling extra pressure.

Once you set a goal, it’s common to feel pressure to achieve it, especially if you’ve shared your goal with other people. You might think that’s a good thing, but that pressure can backfire. As this study shows, it doesn’t help you become a long-term exerciser. That’s really the key – making your healthy behaviors a permanent part of your lifestyle. Process goals are perfect for that.

I think process and outcome goals are two sides of the same coin. It’s important to use both to set yourself up for success. I like to think of outcome goals as tools that help structure your process goals.

How to Use Outcome Goals and Process Goals:

Let’s say you want to get stronger. That’s your outcome goal. To set a really good outcome goal, it should be SMART. You may have heard of the SMART method before. SMART stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.

Let’s use the squat as an example, since it’s a great strength builder. You might decide that you want to build the strength to be able to squat with a barbell in 6 months.

That goal is specific and you can measure your progress in each workout. If you're just starting out with strength training, it’s certainly an achievable goal. It’s relevant to your overall goal of wanting to get stronger, and you have a timeline for achieving it.

Many people will set an outcome goal, even a SMART one, and stop there. That’s a mistake. We know how important process goals are, so the next step is to set some process goals which will help you actually achieve your outcome.

Think about everything you could do on a daily or weekly basis to move you towards your outcome goal. Write it all down. Then take a look at your list and narrow it down to the most important and achievable things that would move you towards that goal.

Here’s a list of process goals you could use to achieve your squat outcome goal:

• Practice squats at the gym twice a week.

• Use a progressive plan, starting with bodyweight squats and then move to goblet squats, adding a little weight each week.

• Track your progress.

• Eat a serving of lean protein with every meal.

• Get 7-8 hours of sleep each night to recover from workouts.

You can do the same thing with any goal, whether it’s related to exercise, healthy eating, sleep, stress, or anything else you want to achieve.

Now here’s the trick: Push that outcome goal to the back of your mind and focus on your process goals. Work on those, week in and week out, and guess what will happen? You’ll get stronger, but more than that, you’ll ingrain some essential skills and develop sustainable habits.

If you achieve your process goal of practicing squats at the gym twice a week, you'll have made huge strides towards making regular exercise an automatic part of your lifestyle.

Each time you achieve your process goal of adding a little more weight to your squat, you will have stacked up a little win and improved your exercise confidence, which will give you more motivation keep exercising.

By training consistently and progressively increasing your strength, you'll also feel and look better.

Mastering the process is the real goal, because it’s what sets you up for a lifetime of exercise and gives you the skills to achieve any other goals you have in mind.

Outcome goals are exciting, they hold the promise of big results and drastic changes. Unfortunately, that’s not how exercise and other healthy lifestyle changes work. You don’t go through a tunnel and come out the other side with suddenly defined muscles or the ability to run a marathon.

Results come gradually over time, and only if you put in the daily work. That daily work is your process goals.

They require you to show up, day after day, week after week, and put in the effort. They’re a grind, and that’s the beauty of them. All you have to do is that day’s work, then the next one, and the next one, and along the way you’ll realize you’ve gotten where you wanted to go.

If You Need More Help

Download my FREE eBook, a Step by Step Guide To Goal-Setting.

If you're ready to start your fitness journey, my Strength Training For Anxiety Program is available to guide you! This 12-week workout program is specifically designed to help you get strong AND improve your mental health!