It’s been a week since the onset of 2016 and I‘m sure most, if not all of you, have written down your New Year’s resolutions already. Personally, I don’t really believe in them because I think that if we want to change something in ourselves, we don’t have to wait for New Year to start to change them. We should do it as soon as possible. Although, when it comes to health and fitness resolutions for the New Year, it’s always nice to start from square one, on day one. The thing is, most of us fail in these fitness resolutions right away or fail to meet them halfway through. Why? It’s because most of the time, our resolutions are too vague.
Now, I want you to go over your New Year’s resolutions under the health and fitness category and reassess them. If you wrote, “eat more healthy,” “lose 10 lbs.,” or “start working out,” then unfortunately, you are most probably doomed for failure. I don’t mean to be a Debbie downer here; I’m just being realistic. You probably wrote those down also last year, didn’t you? Nothing really wrong there as I’ve done that in the past, too…
You see, these “resolutions” are too vague. What do you mean exactly when you say you will eat healthier? Does it mean no eating junk? Sugar? Going Paleo? Going vegetarian? You have to be more specific. Same goes for to “lose 10 lbs.” – how exactly are you going to lose them? What will you do? Is it going to be diet based or workout based? There are so many questions left unanswered, it won’t be a surprise that the lack of direction will be the cause of failure.
The only way to get these “resolutions” to work for you is to set specific fitness goals. Not just for the whole year, but it can be weekly and monthly goals as well. Smaller, interim goals. Make them more specific and detailed. Trust me, it works – I’ve been doing it for a while. Case in point: about four months ago, I got introduced to running thanks to some friends who recently got into it. Despite nursing a knee injury, I pushed myself and set a goal that by the end of the year, running 12k would be a breeze. I ended up capping 2015 with a 15k run on New Year’s Eve. Goal: unlocked.
Setting weekly and monthly goals will motivate you and push you more into achieving these goals. Instead of saying you will “eat healthy,” try writing, “go on a 21-day sugar detox on March” or “do a 7-day water fast in April,” “no junk food until my birthday,” “eat more vegetable-based food for a week.” These goals are more manageable and not obscure.
As for fitness goals, instead of just saying that you will “start working out” or “lose 10 lbs.,” let me give you a sample of a more defined goal list:
January
• Start running 3k everyday
• Drop 0.5” on my waist
• Be able to do one pull-up
• Be able to hold plank for 15 seconds
February
• Hit 3k in 20 minutes
• Have my old pair of jeans fit me perfectly
• Be able to do three consecutive pull ups
• Hold plank for one minute
And so on. The more detailed your list, the more achievable your goals become. And hey, don’t shortchange yourself but don’t shoot for the stars too much also. Be realistic with your goals and you will be able to achieve them easily. You don’t want to put “do a free standing handstand for 10 seconds” on your first week with zero background on handstands, right?
Having a well-defined fitness goal is important because it is a great way to measure your progress and give you proper direction towards attaining them. Having specific goals will let you know right away whether you’ve achieved them or not, and the more you succeed in achieving them, the more motivated you become. Why? Because it’s been proven that success definitely keeps us motivated. Having specific fitness goals are a lot easier to sustain than vague ones because the latter only seem reasonable on the surface, but won’t be sustainable in the long run because they are not as meaningful.
We should all have both short-term and long-term fitness goals, although we wouldn’t be able to achieve the bigger goals without the smaller ones. One big goal can be to do 10 pull-ups by the end of the year, but the interim goals can be one pull-up by February, three consecutive ones by April, and so on. Fixate yourself on the end goal, but also keep focusing on the ones in the moment.
So again, check your fitness goals and reassess them. Are they vague or well defined? Do you have short-term and long-term goals? Break them down and take note of them all. Trust me, by the end of the year, you would have probably crossed out all of them as you’ve easily accomplished them completely. And maybe by 2017, you’ll finally have a different set of fitness goals to write down!
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