Not feeling motivated? Get SMART

Dropout rates in exercise programs are notoriously high, as much as 50 percent, according to some estimates. So what keeps some people pushing onward, long after others have permanently racked the dumbbells? In a word, success.

How many people want to commit to long hours of hard work — in any endeavor — when they do not see any progress as a result of their efforts?

In some instances, it may be the very goals we set for ourselves that undermine our ability to succeed. Perhaps we have reached too far in envisioning what we want to accomplish, or set our sights on something that cannot be measured, making progress seem elusive.

There's a model for setting goals that goes by the acronym SMART. Goals should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound.

Without SMART goals, planning can be difficult, feedback missing, and motivation lacking.

Say I show up at the gym one day, seeking the services of a personal trainer, and I tell her, "My goal is to get really strong." That's more of a nebulous wish than a goal.

It would then be difficult for my trainer to design a program that will keep me engaged, and difficult to determine whether I've succeeded, because I never defined what I meant by strong, and I never set a deadline for accomplishing my goal.

Instead, it would be better to reframe my goal in this way: "I'd like to increase the amount of weight I can bench-press by 5 percent every month until I can bench-press and lift my bodyweight in 12 to 16 months. " I now have a clearly defined and attainable goal whose progress can easily be measured.

Having a defined set of steps to reach your goal can help keep you focused and motivated. It is much easier, for example, to think about losing 2 pounds a week than to think about having to lose 50 pounds.

The SMART principle need not be confined to fitness matters. It can be applied to any goal you might have, whether it's earning a college degree, learning a foreign language, or finding a new job.

So go ahead and "get SMART." If you fall a bit short of your goals, at least you can say, to quote secret agent Maxwell Smart from the old TV show of the same name, "Missed it by that much."

The latest poll results are in

Congratulations — you readers once again passed one of my highly unscientific and perpetually flawed polls with flying colors!

With a massive turnout this time of 11 voters, you showed that you're a well-rounded group when it comes to your motivation for exercise. Six respondents, or 54 percent, said they exercise mainly to improve their overall health, and two, or 18 percent, said their chief motivation was to gain strength. The other three reasons, weighing in with one vote, or 9 percent, each were: to lose weight, to improve physique and to improve cardiovascular endurance.

You obviously recognize that exercise can play an important role in enhancing the overall quality of your life and your health. I sometimes get a little annoyed at the way exercise is sold to the public primarily as a weight-loss vehicle. Sure, maintaining a healthy body composition is a big part of overall health, but exercise has so many more benefits than just reducing body fat.

So keep up the good work, and maybe someday I'll get a poll response that's big enough to be meaningful. In the meantime, I'm having fun trying — and fun can go a long way toward improving one's overall health, too.

Skip the drama and just act!

I've always had mixed feelings about that popular self-help expression "fake it till you make it." While I'm sure that approach can help some people, it has always struck me as too trite to be of real value to those who are trying to make big changes in their lives.

But I'm rethinking the matter, particularly as it relates to exercise. A few days ago, while studying my American Council on Exercise personal trainer manual, I came across a variation of that maxim: "It is easier to act yourself into a new way of feeling rather than feel yourself into a new way of acting."

The section of the manual in which this sentence appeared had to do with the principles of behavior change. According to one model of lifestyle change, we go through five distinct stages: precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action and maintenance.

When it comes to regular exercise, a lot of people seem to get to the contemplation stage, but never make it to action. One of the most frequently cited reasons for not working out is lack of time. I've always believed, however, that people will manage to make time for the things they truly want to do.

I also often hear people say — and I've been guilty of it, too — that after a day at work, they're too tired to work out.

But what if you just went and did it anyway, regardless of whether you felt like you had the time or energy? As any veteran exerciser knows, regular exercise is more likely to be a source of energy than fatigue.

So next time you find yourself contemplating exercise, but coming up with a host of reasons why you won't, just get up and go. If you stick with that strategy, you just might, over time, find yourself looking forward to exercise because you know it will make you feel better. Your actions, then, will have changed the way you feel about exercise.

Suddenly you'll have time for exercise, and arriving home from work tired will be a reason to go to the gym or take a walk in the park instead of parking yourself on the sofa.

Well, it's just a thought ...