I have found in both my personal and professional lives that I can awe myself if I set goals.  Without them, I have a tendency to leave things unfinished and even lose interest.

Simply put, we do not realize how capable we really are until we start pushing ourselves to meet goals.  Goal setting is a powerful process and can bleed into all aspects of your life and there's no better way to show yourself clearly just what a beast you are!

With health and fitness goals, be careful not to ONLY set goals too far in advance.  Start with smaller goals and work your way through them.  For example, I just recently started running and my first goal was to run .5 miles without stopping.  I then moved to 1 mile and then set another goal of 2 miles.  Once I'm strong in the 2 miles, I'll add another mile.  If I would've started with a 3 mile goal, I could've easily gotten frustrated or plain out dropped dead.  ; )

I also always have long term goals, but I don't just set them and forget about them.  The long term goals is what determine the short term goals I start working toward.  Once I start plowing through the short term goals, I'm closer and closer to achieving the long term one.

I have done the same thing with my diet.  I started this journey a little over 2 years ago and had I decided way back then that I would no longer eat fast food, go almost entirely organic and eliminate most everything I was eating all day, it would've been wayyyy too overwhelming.

I ditched one bad food item at a time and added a new food that gives my body all that good stuff it needs and two years later, I feel better than I ever have in my entire life, which encourage me to set some more goals.  Ahhhh it's a beautiful thing, isn't it?

If you are working out and trying to LIVE longer but aren't yet setting goals, give it a try and watch how much your progress will increase.