Are you ready for the fun part of creating your first training plan? In this video we are going to go over exactly how you can set your goal in the best way possible for you to achieve it.  Do you remember making outlines? You know, those bulleted lists that helped you plan and organize your papers in high school or college.   They’re like the paper’s skeleton. The outline holds up the paper and keeps it in proper form. More importantly, outlines helped you get from the introduction to the conclusion in the best way possible. They helped make you a better writer. Better writers got better grades.  A training plan has the same value for athletes of all ages, abilities, and skill levels. It doesn’t matter if you’re about to go out for your first run or getting ready for the Olympics. You need one. The plan will get you from your current state to your desired state in the best way possible. They will help make you a better athlete. Better athletes get better outcomes.   In the last video we covered how to find your current fitness level or Point A. Now you need to figure out what Point B is so that you can plot the course between them.   You can’t achieve a goal if you aren’t perfectly clear on what that goal is. For better or for worse, goals are like dreams. They can be as big as your imagination allows. But that can mean you set a goal way beyond what you can reasonably achieve. You can keep it realistic by taking that goal out of your head and putting it on paper. That simple act helps bring it into the real world and allows you to look at it objectively.   Writing it down also reinforces that goal in your mind. You can look at that piece of paper every morning and every night. Read it to yourself. Read it out loud. Read it a thousand times.  If you gave yourself a manageable goal and laid out a doable plan, one day you will reach the end. All you will need to have done is follow the plan and do the work. You will have achieved your goal!  A study published in the American Psychological Association found that when someone set specific and challenging goals it led to a higher performance 90% of the time when compared to someone who set easy goals, "do your best" goals, or no goals at all.    Goals affect performance by directing attention, mobilizing effort, increasing persistence, and motivating strategy development.  Setting goals gives you long term vision and short term motivation.  But from the start one of the most important pieces to a training plan is that it requires you to write down your goal. It’s not truly a plan if its only in your head; that’s just an idea. Written goals are 39.5% more likely to succeed than the wishful thinking we keep inside. BUT the benefits don’t stop there! Written goals PLUS weekly accountability are 76.7% more likely to succeed. Your plan is your accountability control. Each day you can check off a small piece of your progress; or not check off workout sessions you missed or skipped. You will have instant feedback on whether you are doing the work or letting your dream slip away.   Families are the perfect teams for making lifelong health and fitness changes. Your family is already a team in so many ways. We are just so accustomed to it we don’t even recognize it. But think about it. When a kid says, “Hey, I need something,” who’s there to help him? Siblings and parents! When a parent says, “Hey, can you help me?, who’s lands a hand? The spouse and kids. The support network is there. All you need is to set the goal.