Do you ever read through fitness magazines or watch people at the gym who have the perfect physique and you keep thinking to yourself, "why haven't I gotten to that point yet?" You keep doing the same thing day in and day out yet seem to see no changes or results. This lack of results usually leads to a frustrating attitude and eventually a lackluster effort towards reaching your fitness goals or even staying motivated to even work out. Well, chances are, you're missing one or a few of the key ingredients to reaching and maintaining fitness success. The following tips I have compiled below are the essentials that I think every person needs in order to reach their fitness goals and stay motivated and dedicated to making the positive changes they need in their lives. After training and talking with many of my clients over the past few years, I've found that these 10 tips are the must haves in any person's fitness program!

1. Have Well Defined Goals

This may seem like an obvious must have, but I bet you can walk into any gym and ask a person working out, "what is your goal?" and they will stumble over their words. It's amazing but true - I see it every day at work. If you don't have a goal - a well defined goal - then how do you expect to get to where you want if you don't know where you are going to begin with? Your goal is your finish line; so you need this to be well defined and as specific as possible in order to set out on your path to reaching it.

A few typical goals I hear when I first start training clients are: 1. Tone up, 2. Eat better, 3. Lose weight. Those are pretty vague and have no defined goals that can be measured. Be as specific as possible with your goals! After all, these are your goals! What specific areas do you want to tone up? What are you going to do specifically to tone up? When do you want to be toned up by? What are you going to change with your eating patterns now to reach your goal of "eating better"? How much weight do you want to lose specifically? When do you want to lose this weight by?

If you answer any of those questions mentioned above, the beginning goals of tone up, eat better, and lose weight now look more like this: 1. Have smaller, toned thighs and butt to fit into 2 smaller pant sizes, 2. Eat 5-6 smaller meals a day and cut out more processed foods, 3. Lose 10 pounds of fat in 4 months. These goals are much more specific and defined, and give you a better idea of what you are working towards, so you can make the necessary changes to your strength, cardio and nutrition programs to reach those goals once and for all!

2. Have Patience

Fitness is not a quick fix - never has been and never will be - it is a life change that you commit to incorporating into your life every day to live a better, longer, healthier life. With that said, do not expect to find any successful fitness plan that works over night. It did not take you 48 hours to gain the weight or develop the less than healthy eating patterns, so don't expect immediate results.

One of the tips I give my clients is to set short term goals (daily, weekly, and monthly) as well as long term goals (3+ months) so you can learn to develop patience with your fitness program. Sometimes looking at the longer term goals first can be overwhelming, but if you set smaller goals and can check them off your list of accomplishments daily, it helps to develop patience with your overall fitness program. It also helps to develop a positive attitude that is also a must have for fitness success!