Asterisk Goals

We live in an age where all of the possible permutations of choice play out right before our very eyes on social media. You are able to find hundreds, if not thousands, and in some cases, millions of people engaging in every humanly possible endeavour, and celebrating it for the world to see. This is awesome, but it has led people to develop asterisk goals. What do I mean by asterisk goals? Well, it is a goal with one or more caveats. Goals where you want to have your cake and eat it too. It is an all too common issue and something we have to deal with quite a lot when we coach someone. To be quite honest, I can see the appeal and I have certainly fallen victim to its allure before. But this article isn’t for me, it is for you. So buckle up and get ready for some introspection.

 

Do you have asterisk goals?

Without thinking about it too much, ask yourself do you have asterisk goals? Are you trying to achieve a goal, while having caveats on that goal? Most people involved with the gym will say “no way, I am totally committed bruh. I am DEDICATED”. Some of you will automatically acknowledge/realise that you do have some caveats to your goals, while some of you are still lost and don’t know what the hell I am talking about. So what am I talking about? It is easier for me to show you, with some examples!

 

Common Asterisk Goals

I want to achieve “X” feat of strength/performance… but… I want to do it while having a six-pack. Or while losing weight. Or while only sleeping 5 hours a night. Or without having to work on my diet. Or without having to make any sacrifices in my social life. Etc. etc. You basically want to achieve this feat of strength/performance, but you want to limit your ability in actually achieving it because you value these other aspects more/just as much. Which would be fine if you were willing to compromise somewhere, but of course you are not.

I want to be the best at “X” sport… but… I don’t want to take the drugs that they all take. Or I don’t want to have to train that much. Or I want to do it in the next <arbitrary time period>. Or I want to still spend lots of time with my friends and family. Or I want to travel to a lot of exotic places for large periods of time where I know I won’t be able to train. Etc. etc. You basically want to be the best, while making no compromises whatsoever, and you don’t want to have to endure what everyone else who is successful had to endure.

I want to gain muscle… but… I don’t want to have to gain any fat at all. Or I don’t want to have to eat that much. Or I don’t want to have to look after all those “extra” things that help make a diet more effective (like sleep and stress management). Or I want to do it while being vegan/vegetarian/carnivore/fruitarian/any other diet that makes it incredibly hard to get all the nutrients you need. Or I want to do it in the next “arbitrary time period”. Etc. etc.

I want to get lean… but… I don’t want to have to watch my diet. Or I don’t want to lose any strength or see performance decrease. Or I don’t want to have to look after all those “extra” things that help make a diet more effective (like sleep and stress management). Or I want to do it while being vegan/vegetarian/carnivore/fruitarian/any other diet that is already hard to get all the nutrients you need. Or I want to do it in the next “arbitrary time period”. Etc. etc.

And on and on and on.

You get the idea. You want to achieve a goal, but you either don’t want to have to deal with the “side effects” of working towards that goal, or you want to achieve it while also achieving another goal. And of course, you follow this guy/gal on social media that is able to do it all, so why shouldn’t you? Well, I certainly am not going to say it isn’t possible to achieve your asterisk goal, especially if it is actually a human possibility. However, you must be realistic, and questioning why there are so few (if any) people doing what you propose to do is probably a good idea. You should also question whether what someone is doing now is what got them there in the first place. You could be following someone that seems to have it all, great physique, awesome strength/performance and they eat whatever they want. However, you weren’t following them for the 20 years they were bulking to get to that level. Or you weren’t following them while they were training as a child. Or you didn’t see that despite not training as a teen they were 220lbs at 6% body fat. Or you don’t see them pinning their glutes twice a week with performance-enhancing drugs. But yeah, of course, you with your terrible genetics, who started training in your twenties, vehemently opposed to steroids and with your poor work ethic, will definitely be able to do what they did. You must be realistic, and while I would love to say anything is possible, for most people, achieving a “normal” goal is hard enough. Trying to make it even less likely you will succeed by making your goal harder and adding all of these asterisks to it, is a recipe for failure. This is not to say you can’t do it, but riding two horses with one ass will always be less efficient than one horse.

 

Solving The Asterisks Goals Problem

This is a rather easy problem to solve, as you basically just stop making goals that have all of these extra goals layered on. However, I know you aren’t going to do that, and you will continue having asterisk goals. But what I can do is help you actually achieve something, by virtue of guiding you in the right direction.

So how do we solve the problem? Well, the first thing you can do is actually write down your goals. Having this vague idea of what you want to do is useless. You need to have a clear vision. Then you need to rank your goals in order of importance. So if you want to be ridiculously strong and jacked, what does that actually look like in terms of tangible measurements, and which goal is more important? You might want to be jacked more than you want to be strong, so you would rank being jacked higher. Ranking your goals is extremely important, as it will allow you to tailor your approach more appropriately, while also allowing you to see what you are actually willing to compromise on. Because you are going to have to compromise somewhere. So in the above example, you want to be jacked more than you want to be strong, so perhaps doing everything possible to be strong isn’t the best idea. So overeating a huge amount and getting stronger by virtue of having better leverages from fat gain (that power gut life) probably isn’t going to be the approach you take. If the goal ranking was reversed, then perhaps you would be ok with accumulating more fat tissue in the pursuit of strength. So you are effectively ranking your goals to ensure that you know where it is ok to compromise. this is especially important for those that multiple asterisks on their goals. The next step involves you searching to see if someone else has done it and if so, asking them how they have done it. This is the step most people will skip, because it will generally involve paying someone to show you their knowledge, and it also falls down because there are a lot of charlatans out there (such as people claiming to be natural when they are on copious quantities of performance-enhancing drugs). That is how you hopefully, solve the issue, because if you haven’t, one of 3 things happen:

1. You continue trying to achieve these asterisk goals and fail completely and give up all hope in all this health and fitness stuff because your asterisk goal is impossible.
2. You continue trying to achieve these asterisk goals and continue spinning your wheels for years and never actually achieve anything, then realise the error of your ways and work towards the goal without adding the asterisk.
3. You achieve the asterisk goal because you uncover that you are in fact the genetic elite.

 

Most often, it is the first option. The second option does happen sometimes though. The third option is extremely rare, and unfortunately, out of the millions of people on social media, these are the ones you likely follow.

 

Accepting Weakness

Now reading that can lead you to think I am saying you shouldn’t go after your goals if you do genuinely have legitimate asterisks to layer on top of their goals. And that is simply not my stance at all. We are not accepting weakness here and effectively resigning ourselves to mediocrity because you happen to fall into a category that mandates you put an asterisk on your goal (such as trying to be a high-level competitor and having a happy healthy family). But you can go too far, and say you are ok with so many caveats that you never actually achieve anything. So it is a balance we are looking for, and essentially it all boils down to you being realistic with your goals. Be objective in your assessment of the goals you have set, and if very few people are doing what you want to do, then spend some time contemplating why nobody else is doing it.

All in all, don’t hold yourself back from actually achieving your goal by putting an asterisk on it. Because at the end of the day literally, nobody cares that you achieved a double bodyweight paused front squat with no belt, one knee sleeve, standing on an exercise ball, while dieting on 50% of your resting metabolic rate and vegan every second day, except for maybe you.

 

If you haven’t already, you should read up on how to set your diet up correctly, how to set up good sleep hygiene practices and how to manage your stress, as all of these will influence your ability to achieve your goals. If you need more specific help with your goals, then getting online coaching may be of help to you.