Karen Hiser

"It's a battle of mind versus mattress.... Starting a day with an early victory over self leads to more victories." Stephen Covey, Principle Centered Leadership. Hiser is thankful for the health and love of my awesome family.

Setting Effective Travel Fitness Goals (Part 2 of 2)

Last month, I shared how to use SMART goal setting to help you maintain your fitness and diet routine while on the road. You'll recall that SMART goals are: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely. For a particularly hectic trip, I defined several SMART goals for myself, and I promised you a follow up article to share my lessons learned.

Lessons Learned

1. Get at least 60 minutes of cardiovascular
exercise during the trip.

This turned out to be a no-brainer. The first day's client meetings ended early, leaving me with an unexpected time bonus. I successfully avoided the work pressure of email and the peer pressure of happy hour. I let the rest of the group go to the bar, while I went to the gym. This early workout got my trip off to a good start and set the tone for the rest of the trip.

Lesson Learned: Take advantage of unexpected down-time to get in a quick workout.

Lesson Learned: Early successes can set the stage for continued success throughout the trip. Look for ways to achieve small goals on your first day of travel.

Lesson Learned: Your personal time belongs to you, even when you're on the road. Use it wisely to achieve your priorities, not someone else's.

2. Eat no more than two cookies during the trip.

By packing healthy snacks, I ate well during the client meetings. What I didn't realize, however, was that I was going to be eating dinner every night with people who ordered drinks, appetizers, AND dessert. As I said last month, my resolve evaporates if others are eating and I'm not, so dinners proved to be my downfall for healthy eating.

Finally, on the last day, I realized that just because my coworkers were having 400 calorie desserts didn't mean I had to also. Although not on the menu, I ordered a small scoop of sorbet with a couple of berries. Perfect!

Lesson Learned: Think about the people with whom you'll be traveling and how they might negatively impact your plans.

Lesson Learned: Devise coping strategies ahead of time, such as how you'll say "No, thanks."

Lesson Learned: Sometimes the best things at a restaurant aren't on the menu. And you'll never get what you want if you don't ask for it.

3. Do at least 15 minutes of stretching per day.

I had mediocre performance on this goal, finding these 15 minutes about half of the time. I simply did not have the ability to plan appropriately for this time. For example, I used up all of my bonus time on the first day of the trip doing cardio, and didn't leave myself any stretching time. I failed to follow my own best advice and schedule this activity on my calendar.

Lesson Learned: Schedule time blocks on your calendar for all activities, even short ones.

Lesson Learned: Don't schedule every minute of every day. Although I got a fabulous time bonus on my trip, we all know that travel is usually fraught with delays.

Lesson Learned: Review your calendar often and stick to it!

Achieving Success

Remember that you can't achieve success
if you don't define it.

So the next time you're traveling, put a pencil to paper to define your SMART travel fitness goals.

In next month's column, look for a SMART travel fitness goal setting worksheet and tracking tool, just in time to get your travels off to a great start for the New Year.