Get moving with 5 fitness goals for all bodies and budgets

When you’re working long hours to achieve a professional goal or balancing heavy work and home responsibilities, it can be hard to carve out time and energy for a workout.

It’s extra challenging when you don’t have a clear sense of purpose. Vaguely wanting to “get healthy” doesn’t inspire many to hit the gym consistently or train for a marathon.

That’s where fitness goals can help. These objectives motivate you to incorporate exercise into your daily life by providing a clear sense of direction and a way to track your progress.

Fitness goals are a form of extrinsic motivation  they give you a reason to do something apart from simply enjoying it. If you run because you love it, that’s great. But when you don’t want to go for a jog, you can use the deadline of an upcoming race to motivate you to hit the pavement. 

10 examples of attainable fitness goals 

What’s attainable for you differs from what’s possible for someone else. If you’re new to exercise, you could try building consistency through short sessions. If you already have a pretty good routine, challenge yourself by aiming for a difficult goal you know will make you feel great when you achieve it.

Here’s a list of challenging yet attainable fitness goals to suit any fitness level. You can turn all of these into SMART goals by moving through the SMART framework, adjusting to your own circumstances.

1. Put on your shoes

Yes, you read that right. Behavioral scientist B.J. Fogg, who’s helped thousands of people create new habits, says the key to tackling a big goal is breaking it into tiny pieces. You then practice these “tiny habits” until they become automatic and gradually build to your broader objective from there.

If you aim to go for a morning walk or jog and haven’t found the time or motivation, Fogg says you should start by just putting on your running shoes for five days. You can even go straight to bed after.

Just the act of putting on your shoes, if you do it at a consistent point in your routine and pat yourself on the back afterward, increases your confidence and generates motivation to continue developing the habit and integrating it into your life.

If you’re disenchanted with standard goal-setting or feel reluctant to commit to a big goal, just take the very first step. Put on your shoes. Do one squat. Dance for five seconds. You might be surprised by what happens next.

2. Try one new workout type every week

Everybody is different. Some people hate morning runs but love evening yoga and others leap out of bed to start their day with a 5-mile jog.

Scientists have found that you’re more likely to stick to an exercise routine if you enjoy it. So if you haven’t found a workout you really like, finding something that you enjoy should be your starting point.

If you choose this goal, write a list of workouts you’ve always wanted to try or are curious about. Pick 2–3 that interest you most and research the logistics, like whether there’s a studio near you, if you can try it online, and if you already know an instructor who could teach you. That’ll tell you which you should sign up for first. Then, aim to try them all in a set time frame, like one month. 

Here are a few ideas to start you off:

• Yoga

• Pilates

• Martial arts

• Dancing

• Chair yoga

• Swimming

• Trampolining

• Tai chi

• Ultimate frisbee

• Soccer

• Basketball

• CrossFit

If a team sport sounds appealing, try joining an amateur league or playing with your friends, as studies show that team sports can have health and social benefits above and beyond those of individual workouts.

3. Exercise for at least 15 minutes every day

At times of extreme overload and stress, making exercise a high priority can feel impossible. But even if you can’t find the time for a full cardio workout, try to find 15 minutes daily.

A 15-minute workout might not sound like much, but research shows that 15-minute workouts can extend your lifespan, increase your resting metabolism, and make you mentally sharper afterward.

While you could stretch, walk, or squat, for even more benefits, try high-intensity interval training (HIIT). Researchers found that after a 12-week program where participants worked out three times a week, 10 minutes of exercise that included one minute of high-intensity interval training had equivalent outcomes to one 50-minute session of moderate-intensity exercise.

One valuable aspect of keeping your workout expectations low is harnessing your streak's motivational power. If you keep track of the days you work out, once you’ve logged three, five, 10 days in a row of 15-minute workouts, you’ll want to keep going just to avoid breaking your streak. To protect this fitness routine, try blocking time in your calendar well in advance. 

4. Walk for a set period (or number of steps) every day 

Walking offers a powerhouse of health benefits, like improving your cardiovascular health, reducing your risk of cancer, and assisting your immune functioning. Even short-term walking programs have long-term effects. One study found that people who participated in a 12-week walking program were healthier 3–4 years later.

If you use a fitness tracker, aim for a set number of steps every day for a week or month and then re-evaluate. To go technology-free, aim for a set period that fits into your schedule: half an hour, 45 minutes, an hour. For reference, based on the average “brisk walking” pace, an hour’s walk is equivalent to 6,000–7,800 steps.

5. Do a cardio workout three times a week

Cardiovascular exercise (anything that raises your heart rate and breathing volume) improves cardiovascular health, inflammation, and your mood.

Aiming to work out 3–5 times a week is optimal because it builds in rest days, which are especially important if you do demanding cardio workouts. Rest helps you prevent injury, repair and build muscle, and restock your muscles’ supply of glycogen, their main energy source.