Staying With Your New Year’s Resolutions
If you can believe it, the month of January is OVER! For several people, January is a time to make positive changes in life, primarily through New Year’s Resolutions. In fact, last year 39% of adults in the U.S. said they committed to at least one resolution.
Since New Year’s Resolutions are so common, the question becomes how successful are those who set them? Some research data suggest that 33 - 55% of people who make a New Year’s Resolution are successful. The criteria for success is a bit up for debate, but what we do know is that for those who “fail” do so around 42 days in. Now I understand New Year’s Resolutions aren’t for everyone, but since we’re approaching the time frame where people struggle to maintain their commitment, I wanted to outline my top 3 tips to help keep you consistent.
Tip 1: Don’t Press the Fuck It Button: Listen, you’re never going to be perfect in everything that you do. For my students out there, you’re never going to get a 100% on every test and assignment in all of your courses. Parents, you aren’t going to make the right decision for your kid 100% of the time, and that’s ok! We as humans have this all or nothing mentality that most likely stems from our perception of threat. Obviously, positive emotion is great and our brain rewards us when good things occur in our life. But, do you ever notice no matter how great of a day you have it sometimes takes just one small, irrelevant event to ruin everything. Our brain in some aspect is set up to fixate on threat since it’s more productive (for our survival) to be more concerned with what can harm us vs. what makes us feel good. This concept also applies to working towards your fitness & health related goals. Imagine, you’ve been absolutely crushing your training, nutrition, and sleep the first 3 weeks of January! You’re working out 3 times a week, you’ve added more fruits and veggies to your diet, and your getting 8 hours of sleep every night. But, the last two nights in a row you missed the gym because you got a cold, and you slept horribly because your body has aches and pains. Now that you’re finally starting to feel better, you’re pissed that you missed the gym and your poor sleep is impacting your hunger cues causing you to eat in an overly emotional manner. The common thought process with clients I work with goes something like this “I really fucked up these last couple of days, this is stupid and I’m not making any progress”. What my client did in the moment is what I call pressing the “Fuck It Button”. This means they ignore the 3 weeks of hard work and commitment they did and hyper fixate on two days where they weren’t perfect. Those 2 days don’t negate all the work you did and will not derail your progress. Now, I know it’s easier said than done when it comes to not fixating on the “bad days”, so now that we have a clear understanding of the “Fuck It Button”, let’s cover some strategies on how to avoid pressing it.
Have flexibility built into your goals from the jump: If you plan to be perfect you’re setting yourself up for failure. Rather than saying “I’m going to go to the gym 5 days per week” despite not working out at all this past year, try instead to say “I’m going to go to the gym 2 days a week for 1 month, and then re-evaluate once I do that consistently”.
Intentionally plan rest days and “cheat” meals: Rather than trying to be perfect and never miss a workout and never change your diet, have some freedom built into your plan. This removes the concept of restriction, which for a lot of people can lead to unhealthy and unsustainable behaviors, or ultimately cause you to fail with your goals.
Tip 2: Remove Barriers from your Environment. It may sound silly, but barriers aren’t always these colossal mountains to climb. A barrier can be something as “simple” as forgetting your gym clothes or being tired after work. I think overall people don’t do a good job of identifying simple barriers because they are looked at as silly and should be taken into account automatically. But, when you stack a bunch of simple barriers up one by one, they quickly become a mountain. When it comes to making long lasting behavior change you want to remove as many barriers as possible. Think about how you can make taking action in a desired behavior as easy as possible, that way you increase your chances of doing it. Here are some common barriers and how you can remove them.
Forgetting your gym attire. Pack your clothes for the gym the night before. Also, keep a spare set of workout clothes in your car. This way you don’t have to drive back home if you forget your gym clothes.
Lack of energy: Being too tired for a workout could be a sign that you’re hungry. Pack a small snack that is easy on your stomach so you can give yourself some fuel before your training session. If your doctor approves, you can also use caffeine to help give you some needed energy to make it through the workout.
Not knowing what to do at the gym: Have a plan for when you go to the gym. Have your workout already written out so you know what you wanna do and don’t spend additional time choosing what exercises to do.
Lack of motivation: Try inviting a friend. Having a friend can hold you accountable since you don’t want to cancel on them and you can push one other to be active. A friend can also make workouts more fun since they can provide a social element.
Tip 3: Celebrate the Small Wins - At the end of the day, a win is a win. Similar to tip number 1, it’s very easy to focus on the negative. Challenge yourself to shift your perspective on progress and acknowledge all the wins through your fitness journey. More wins means more positive reinforcement, more positive reinforcment means an increased likelihood of repeating that behavior. A small win can be as simple as making it to the gym that day, making a positive dietary choice, feeling stronger in your workout, noticing you have more energy throughout the day, etc. It also helps to celebrate things that are goal adjacent. Of course you wanna celebrate noticeable markers that get you closer to your goal, but you won’t notice those every day or even every week at times. But, you can notice things that are related to your goals. For example, if your goal is to increase your 1 rep max on squats, you won’t max out every week, but you will notice if similar weights feel lighter week to week. Focus on stacking these wins and it’ll be difficult for you to not stay consistent in your fitness routine.
Hopefully these tips help you stay consistent in pursuing your health and fitness goals for 2023! Let me know what helps you stay consistent in the comments down below.