Think back to an exercise goal you’ve set for yourself in the past.

Maybe it was to get to the gym 3 times per week. Or perhaps to take 10,000 steps per day. Or just to get your 150 minutes of physical activity for the week.

These are all reasonable goals, particularly since they focus on the process (or behaviour - do something X times per week), not the outcome (like lose 5 kg of body weight) - which is more often the focus, yet is far less within our control.

So after setting the goal, you start with good intentions, perhaps get some early wins, and then…

Life gets in the way. You train twice instead of three times. Or fall short of your 10,000 step goal and get only 7,000 instead. And suddenly, that familiar sense of failure creeps back in...

But - did you actually fail?

It’s an important question, because we tend to have a binary way of looking at goals: either you hit the number and you succeed, or you fall short (even very short) and you fail.

But new research suggests if that’s the way we define success, most of us are probably going to fail pretty regularly.

And it also highlights some more useful ways we can look at exercise goals.

How often do people actually achieve their exercise goals?

That was the key question asked by a 2026 systematic review and meta-analysis.

The authors analysed the findings of 89 randomised controlled studies, although they focused on 30 studies (in a total of 4,204 people) that were deemed to be higher quality.

The key take home was the majority of people did NOT achieve their physical activity goals.

In fact, just 36% of participants achieved their goal on average, and when they had multiple goals, they achieved 42% of them on average.

This apparent failure to meet goals persisted across multiple timepoints, and tended to get worse over time.

Turns out “failing” to hit an exercise goal isn’t really unusual at all, and is instead closer to the norm.

But there’s a problem with calling this “failure”

The paper itself provides a nice example of this.

Let’s say person A starts at 5,000 steps per day. They set a goal to get to 10,000 steps, but only get to 8,000.

Meanwhile, person B also starts at 5,000 steps, and aims to increase that to 7,000 steps. This time, they actually get to 7,000 - so they achieve their goal.

This means person A technically failed, while person B succeeded. The problem though is person A actually increased their physical activity more than person B.

This shows how goals can create a somewhat arbitrary line between success and failure.

This problem happens both with process goals, like doing 3 runs per week, or outcome goals, like increasing your leg press strength by 20 kg. If you only run twice per week or only get 8 kg stronger, clearly that’s not the same from a benefit standpoint as doing zero.

Put simply, making progress and achieving a goal aren’t necessarily the same thing.

The dark side of missed goals

Maybe you’re thinking: “who cares if goals aren’t achieved… the main thing is you still exercised anyway”.

And I’d say you’re absolutely right.

The problem is how we interpret the result of a pursued goal can influence what happens next. Because if we think we’ve failed to achieve a goal, this tends to lead to:

• Reduced motivation
• Lower confidence/self-efficacy
• Frustration/guilt/disappointment
• Disengagement from the goal altogether

The vicious cycle goes something like: set ambitious goal → life gets in the way → miss goal → feel like you’ve failed → lose motivation/confidence → exercise less, and so on.

And pretty quickly, something we do to help us exercise (set a goal) can actually become another reason to stop.

But this doesn’t mean we should abandon goals - rather, we may need to approach them differently.

Goals are just part of the puzzle

This is not an argument against setting goals. After all, there is evidence that goal-setting interventions can increase physical activity levels, so they can work.

The problem is that setting a goal and actually achieving it are not the same thing. The paper itself makes the distinction between:

• Goal setting: deciding what you want to achieve.
• Goal striving: doing the things required to get there.

As an example, someone might want to walk 10,000 steps per day (goal setting), but to help them achieve this, they also need strategies to help them perform the behaviour - i.e., walk/move more (goal striving).

This comes back to the idea that with exercise, intention does not equal action. Goal setting might help strengthen that intention, but it won’t automatically help you translate that intention into action.

Setting a goal to strength train three times per week doesn’t tell you what to do when your planned Wednesday session isn’t possible because work ran late. Or the kids were sick. Or you just couldn’t be bothered. Oh and you missed Monday’s session too…

Goals give you some direction, but they don’t help you navigate the many obstacles along the way.

How to set better exercise goals

It’s not all doom and gloom here. Goals themselves aren’t the issue - if we think about them in the right way.

So drawing from the lessons from this paper and some broader literature (plus my own experience), here are 3 ways to use exercise goals better:

1: Stop making success “all-or-nothing”

You can set goals - but just don’t see anything below that as failure.

You might aim for 3 sessions per week (which you might define as ”great”), but 2 sessions = still a good week, and 1 session is still something. Even no sessions becomes an opportunity to reset again next week.

Success can also become more about progress and persistence, rather than achieving an arbritrary threshold.

2: Experiment with more flexible goals

We tend to set quite rigid goals.

After all, we’ve been told that goals should be SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound). In fact, 92% of the studies in the main analysis of this study used specific performance or SMART-type goals.

The authors suggested we may need to incorporate some more open goals, like:

• “See how many steps I can get today.”
• “See how many times I can exercise this week.”

This doesn’t mean all goals need to be vague, but open goals can still encourage progress (e.g., more steps or more sessions), without creating such a defined pass/fail threshold.

The paper also found some evidence that goals were more likely to be achieved when other people (e.g., practitioners) were involved in setting them, rather than simply being prescribed a target. While this finding wasn’t consistent across all analyses, it makes intuitive sense that a goal you help choose can better reflect what feels realistic and achievable in your own life.

Ultimately, different goals may work at different times and for different people.

The important thing is that the goal works for you, rather than simply chasing a target someone else says you should achieve.

3: Spend less time perfecting the goal, and more time on planning for obstacles

Most people set an exercise goal and assume they’ll get there with their best intentions.

But we know it’s far more complex than that.

It requires going beyond only asking “how many times can I exercise this week?” to setting a clear plan, and asking things like:

• “What could get in the way?”
• “What’s my backup option?”
• “What’s the smallest version I could do on a bad day?”

Exercise goals aren’t achieved without consistency, and consistency requires ways to keep going when your Plan A falls through.

Perhaps this is the ultimate goal

The sobering reality here is you are probably going to fall short of your exercise goals at some stage.

But this new analysis suggests most people do - so you’re definitely not alone.

The problem is not goals themselves, nor does missing a goal mean you’ve failed. It comes back to viewing goals differently, and not letting one missed goal de-rail your plans entirely.

We need to remember consistency isn’t about stringing together perfect exercise weeks, nor should the aim be to never miss an exercise goal.

Imperfect exercise weeks and missed goals are the norm. The real goal is to become someone who knows how to keep going when they happen.

Hope you enjoyed this!

Until next week,

Jackson

PS: Do exercise goals help keep you on track, or sometimes make you feel like you’ve failed? Hit reply and let me know!

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IMPORTANT:

The information contained herein is of general nature only and does not constitute personal advice. You should not act on any information without considering your personal needs, circumstances, and objectives. Any exercise program may result in injury. We recommend you obtain advice specific to your circumstances from an appropriate health professional before starting any exercise program.