Are you tired of making the same New Year’s resolutions each year and never following through with them? Year after year we continually resolve to lose weight, get in shape, save more money, quit a bad habit, etc. Wouldn’t it be great to actually follow through and reach your goals in 2021?
Here are my 4 tips for making and keeping successful New Year’s resolutions:
- Plan With Purpose – Vague goals are very difficult to achieve. Examples of vague fitness goals include “run more,” “lose weight,” or “get stronger.” Any of these goals could be made more specific by quantifying them: “Run 30 minutes each week,” or “lose one pound every week until I’ve lost 20 pounds”.
- Set Benchmark Goals For Yourself – If there is no start date, end date, or end goal (benchmark) for your resolution, then it can be very hard to get started and very hard to complete. After all, how hard would it be to run a marathon if you had no idea where the starting line, ending line, or any of the checkpoints were and you just had to run until someone said stop? Pretty tough! So when you set a resolution, you must set a start date and an end date by which you would like to have completed your goal.
- Track Your Progress – If you’re not tracking or logging your progress, you can easily lose motivation, or easily forget your goal entirely. Whether it’s stepping on the scale each day and writing down the number or checking how fast you can run a mile at the end of every week, you must have a way of checking in on your progress toward whatever your goal is.
- Don’t Get Discouraged – No one is perfect and there is a good chance that along the way to completing your goal you will experience a few setbacks. There will be periods of time when you do not progress as quickly as you would like towards achieving your goals. It’s important to remember to stay positive and not get discouraged. Every bit of progress you make toward your goal counts, no matter how small. When the going gets tough, keep going!
For extra boost, have a close friend/relative hold you accountable! Adding accountability will dramatically increase your chances of seeing a resolution through to the finish!
May 2021 be a much better year!
Published with permission from BGI Systems. Source.