New Year resolutions sound great in theory. However, realistically the motivation to accomplish high hopes and wishes fade fast. While motivation begins high and 77% of resolution makers stick at it for the first week, we fall off the wagon pretty quickly and most abandon resolutions by February.
Instead of making huge, vague goals that are quickly abandoned, try goal setting techniques to create a plan of action, these can work best when you set a weekly, month goal and yearly goal, and helps to focus on the smaller win’s short term which lead to the bigger results long term. This topic is especially important for those looking to lose weight and/or getting fit.
These six tips get better as you go, so make note of all six:
1. Think Short Term
It’s easy to get caught up with what you want to accomplish during an entire year, but 365 days is a long time to stay focused on one thing. Break the year into smaller chunks and focus on completing each chunk individually. For example: 30, or 90 day goals can be a great time period to accomplish health/ fitness goals and a lot easier we find also for our clients to focus on, rather than a yearly goal in one go. The variety over this these time periods can be kept high and attention span stimulated.
2. Be Realistic
Sure, it would be great to cut sugar from your diet or to say you’ll never have an alcoholic drink if you enjoy drinking. Any of those things aren’t actually realistic within your means over the long term, and may be extremely difficult over a long period which make a lost less chance of sticking to them and gaining results which last. Another point is that when your goals are so lofty and big, they might not even be right for you in the end.
3. Invest In Your Goal
A sure-fire way to make your goals a reality is to throw money at them. Not having necessarily needing to spend lots of money but hiring someone can help make you truly invested. If you’d like to get fitter, or stronger invest in a trainer or specific coach. If you want to run a marathon, register for one and start training in small segments for it. You might want to start with 5 or 10k runs. If you want to ditch take-out dinners, sign up for a healthy meal delivery service. You get the idea; having your expenses align with your healthy intentions is money well spent.
4. Measure Your Successes
Staying motivated depends on your ability to track progress by using specific metrics appropriate for your goal. However, if your goal to improve body composition, you might look at body fat percentage, measurements, clothes size and a host of other metrics to gauge progress. For non-weight related goals, there are a plethora of ways to see how well you’re doing. Apps can track phone use, budget and time management. Fit trackers can count steps, record sleep and some even provide a daily stress score.
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5. Make An Action Plan
To make your goal something you will actually work toward, that work needs to be defined step by step in a plan.
Take the previously mentioned mini goals, monetary investments, time chunks and tracking metrics that align with your broad goal and turn it into an action plan and work out a strategy on how you will action it. A good action plan leaves little to chance and dictates specifically how you will go about reaching your goal.
6. Stick It Out
Keep in mind: Long-term goals ebb and flow, and there will be setbacks. Even if progress seems slow at times, you’ll get more out of your resolution by taking the tough days in stride and returning to your action plan the next day. Not reaching your mini-goal on the day you set for it doesn’t mean you can’t make progress toward it, and is not a reason at all to give up on your New Year’s resolution entirely.
Whatever your 2019 resolutions may be, these tips will help you make actionable steps toward reaching your goals. Above all, pick a goal that makes you happy and motivated and start taking action as soon as you can!
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