How to keep to your new year’s resolution

There is usually an increased buzz in the fitness industry come early January as people set their new year’s resolutions, and typically we see this die away by late February. I am always sad to see clients go that have lost their enthusiasm for their goals, so I’ve put together this guide to help anyone stick to their resolutions.

Pick the right goal!

“The best goals are rooted in real possibility.”

It so often depends on what goal you set that determines how successful you will likely be. To explain further, you should align your goals to your interests and preferences - if you already know that you really dislike running, deciding you’re going to become a marathon athlete over the coming year is unlikely to lead to success - you will hate every minute of it and cause yourself a lot of distress. The best goals are rooted in real possibility. So if you already have an interest in mindfulness and health, for example, setting yourself a goal of doing a yoga class per week is much more achievable. 

Furthermore, setting yourself an enormously difficult goal with a comparatively short timeframe is likely to lead to failure, or at least falling behind schedule - and this can knock your confidence in yourself and your ability to achieve your resolution. 

By way of example, if you’re not the most active person normally, aiming to cram in four to five fitness classes a week is probably not going to work out! But one to two? Totally manageable even with a busy schedule, and this still gives you plenty of opportunity to make progress and improve and form a really healthy and rewarding habit. By keeping your goal manageable, you increase your likelihood of consistency - which is where success lies. 

The Goal Formula

There is a generally accepted formula for setting effective goals, called SMART goals. The letters basically correspond to the elements of your goal that means you can stay accountable to them, and easily measure their success. Below, I’ve listed the elements of SMART goals and added a new year’s resolution example to show you how they work in practice. 

S – Specific (or Significant)   

M – Measurable (or Meaningful)

A – Attainable (or Action-Oriented)

R – Relevant (or Rewarding)

T – Time-bound (or Trackable)

So by using this formula, a good new year’s resolution might be “I will learn yoga by attending a local class once a week for three months.” 

This way, you know how to measure the success of your goals, and you set a date to review - after three months you will have a pretty good fundamental understanding of yoga, and you can decide if you’re enjoying it and would like to continue.

Note: by setting a goal like this, you also allow some room for failure - if you miss a week, it’s easy to tack on another week at the end to hit a full three months. 

Create a fun environment

Another key element to consider in achieving your new years resolution is the environment you will be doing the work in! It’s in your best interest to create ways to motivate and reward yourself as you go. Some ideas for this might be:

• Asking your friends to complete the goal with you 

• Curate a music playlist to play while you work out

• Start writing a blog to document your journey - publicly or privately

• Use a calendar or journal to mark your progress

• Use mini rewards - (glass of wine after a workout, anyone?!)

Basically, do what it takes to give yourself the best chance possible. 

Group determination and enthusiasm can work wonders!

Failure is okay! 

Another way to ensure resolution success, ironically, is accepting failure. This might be a minor failure in the grand scheme of your goals, like missing one or two fitness classes, or completing losing your way and feeling like you need to start from scratch.

In the first case, we must not allow minor setbacks to dishearten us - stuff happens, and it doesn’t mean our entire goal is lost by a few mistakes. 

In the second case, it’s important to not beat yourself up for losing sight of your aims. If we chastise ourselves, the experience is so awful and we’re unlikely to pick it back up or ever try a resolution ever again! 

By recognising that failure happens, we actually build our confidence and sense of ability to achieve things - progress is not linear, and you don’t have to declare your resolution attempt as finished because of any minor or major hiccups! 

Conclusion

Achieving a new year’s resolution doesn’t have to be impossible - it can actually be really fun if you approach it in the right way! If you are mindful of what kind of goal you set, how you set it, make it fun and accept the possibility of failure, you’re way more likely to complete your resolution and learn a lot along the way!