By now you’ve seen tons of articles quoting how many people ditch their New Year’s resolutions by February.
But it’s not just January when people are not meeting their goals. All year long people are aspiring to do things and flat out failing.
How do you break the cycle and actually succeed at what you want to do?
Everyone is a little bit different, but here are my top tips/strategies to make succeeding in fitness goals or life a little more likely:
- Get a coach or friend a friend — If a tree falls in the forest and no one’s around to hear it, does it make a sound? Without getting other people involved we can be much more likely to pretend like our goal never existed. Plus a coach or friend is going to provide accountability which is crucial for staying on track and likely reaching your goals sooner.
- Define your goal and give it a deadline — Remember in college when you had all weekend to write a paper it would take forever, but if you had a few hours to write you could crank it out? Tasks will expand to the time you give them. If you don’t have a since of urgency, you’re probably going to see results too slowly to stay motivated.
- Celebrate small wins — So many of us aim for perfection and except nothing less. But if a friend told you that she had gone 2 week without eating fried food or had stuck to her workout plan 90% of the time for the past month would you tell her that’s not good enough or tell her that’s great? Pat yourself on the pat for small wins and watch them stack up to become big wins.
- Break down your goal — This one especially applies if your goal is something that will take you more than a month or two. Say you want to lose 50 or more pounds or be healthier in general; break that goal down into what you should accomplish in the first month, second month and so on. This will it’ll seem much more manageable.