Ready to finally get started on achieving your New Years Resolutions? Well, we have the top 5 tips to help you achieve the success you are looking for!
1. Have a clearly defined goal that means something personal We need to think of what we want to accomplish, and why we want to accomplish it. Is it “Just cause” or is there a purpose to this ultimate vision of what we want to achieve? If there is a reason behind our goals, we are going to be much more likely to follow through on these changes not just short term, but long term as well.
We can’t be general in our goals either; we need to come up with very specific goals that we can clearly set up our action plans for (the S.M.A.R.T. goal structure is the best to go here). “Being fit” is not a good goal, an alternative to that (depending on the goal) may be being able to do a 5km run by September or being able to do 10 pull-ups in a row in 10 weeks from now. These are clearly defined goals, with a result we are looking for, and a deadline that we need to accomplish it by. If we hit it or not, it gives us an opportunity to see how we are progressing. Which comes to my next point…
2. Come up with a step-by-step plan Once you know exactly what you want to achieve, we need a plan to go about achieving it. Unfortunately, the following doesn’t work:
“Step 1 – Workout Step 2 – Have a Six Pack”
As you can see, there are a few steps missing between step 1 and step 2. We need to come up with a realistic and effective step-by-step plan towards the results we want to achieve. A lot of times this is where we can get stuck, or we aren’t sure what we need to adjust to see the changes that we want to see. This is where either professional help or a deep look at what we are doing (plus some tracking) can come in to help us realize what we are doing, so we can make the change necessary to see our goals.
We want to think about this like fractions in math (I know… yucky!), we want to break this down to the lowest number possible. We need to take our action plans from five-tenths to one half. If our action plan is to workout, then you better know how many times per week, how long, what you are doing for those exercises and have a way to track your progress. We want every detail of this action plan written down because then it gives you exact guidelines on what to do to get to where you want to be.
Let’s use the example from point 1, 10 pull-ups in 10 weeks:
Step 1 – Do 1 pull-up 5x per week. – Stretch back muscles 1x per week for 5 minutes.
Step 2 – Do 2 Pull-ups in a row 5x per week – Stretch back muscles 2x per week for 5 minutes
Step 3 – Do 3 Pull-ups in a row 2x per week – Do 2 Pull-ups 3x in a row per week – Stretch back muscles 3x per week for 5 minutes
Etc.
Now you can see we have much more structure week to week, we know exactly what we need to accomplish, or we at least must have a goal to accomplish this. If we don’t hit it, we can reassess and try again next week. This gives us a vision of where we are going to get to, and how we are going to get there.
3. Create a support system
What good is all this without people around who are going to help us rather than hinder our progress? If we’ve done all this planning and all this preparing just for someone to sabotage us, what’s the point of all this? We need people in our lives who are going to help elevate or raise us up. Therefore, it is so important to share our goals with those around us. If your friends, co-workers and family members understand why we are making changes, and the importance of those changes to us they will hopefully support and help you along the way. When we don’t have peer pressure in our lives, it gives us much stronger “willpower” to avoid situations where we may fall off from our goals.
Unfortunately, not everyone will be supportive, and this is where we really must look at who we are spending time with. If people around us are saying things like “Oh just come for one drink, it won’t kill your diet” or “Skip the gym, you’ve been working hard all week”, then you might have some red flags. I’m not sitting here telling you to cut these kinds of people out of our lives, but it might be time to assess how much time you spend with those people. Unfortunately, subconsciously or not, some people will try to tear us down for trying to make that change in our lives. Sometimes others are jealous, sometimes people just want to stay in their own ways, but regardless of what it is, it will make this process harder for everyone involved.
This is where establishing some new support systems become important. Find new people with similar interests by taking some different classes around town, joining a walking/running group, join a recreational sports team or just get a friend or family member involved. Having someone to do it with, and that supports us every step in the way will make our goals much more achievable!
4. Track Everything
We cannot make a change in our lifestyle, if we don’t really know what is happening. To make a change, we need to track what we do daily. This can include what we eat, our Physical activity, our water consumption, our screen time, our alcohol consumption and almost any other lifestyle habit we have. When we track and measure what we’ve done daily/weekly/monthly it gives us a realistic idea of where we are that’s on paper, and not relying on our memory. How many times have we all thought that we drank enough water throughout the day, when realistically we may have only had one or two cups?
When we track, we end up being honest about what we are taking in, which can show us what the real issues are, so we can make the adjustments necessary to see the changes that we want. If we are looking to make a real change this New Year, we need to track everything possible to build new habits and stay on track much more effectively.
5. Take Action Nike nailed it back when they made the slogan “Just Do It”. If we want to make a change, if we want to achieve something, if there is a goal we want; we just need to do it! We need to act, and not next week, not next month and definitely not next year. We need to change this crap today! Once you have that idea in place, get those goals on paper… build you plan of attack… tell people about what you are working on… start tracking what you want to change… then start making that change!
This should be the easiest step, but we all tend to procrastinate and put things off until the perfect moment, the perfect time or the perfect situation. News flash… there is never a perfect time to start anything. There always be a reason to NOT do something, but we need to find that reason to Just Do It.
Let’s make this the New Years we’ve always wanted it to be, by achieving our goals, hitting our resolutions and making that change in your lifestyle once and for all!
Rich Hill
CSEP – Certified Personal Trainer
RK Athletics – https://linktr.ee/RK_Athletics
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