It’s January 1st the food and champagne from the festive seasons has stopped flowing and you think to yourself “I need to get fit/lose weight this year”. Sound familiar? Well, you’re in the same boat as the majority of the population.
No doubt you have set a Fitness New Year’s Resolution surrounding your health and fitness. How many times have you actually felt like you have achieved that ‘goal’? Not many times I’m guessing, but that’s ok.
Ever felt the gratification and sense of accomplishment of completing a small task? The neurotransmitter dopamine is responsible for the emotional reaction of that “feeling good” sense. Why not set your year up for success with large amounts of dopamine flowing through your body with actually achieving your new year’s resolution which will transfer to all aspects of your life.
Here’s how to achieve your fitness new year’s resolution every year
Master the skill of goal setting
Proper goal setting takes time, you need to dig deep into your emotions to find the real goal and reasons why you want to achieve it. Most people will set generalised goals that target a specific outcome and then stop there.
Outcome goals are the end result you want to achieve at the end of the process. Outcome goals must be specific when setting them so you know when you achieve the desired outcome. Some bad examples of common outcome goals include:
- I want to lose weight
- Get fit
- Be healthy
These outcome goals above are very general and don’t give you any real measures to if you achieve it. Outcome goals must include to specific measures of a goal. These include, what you want and by when. Here are a few excellent examples of outcome goals.
- Lose 20kgs by the 6th August 2018
- Increase cardiovascular fitness to run the half marathon in May
- Make better nutritional choices for better energy so I can play with my kids
As you can see, the above examples are a lot more specific in what you’re wanting to achieve as your new year’s resolution.
Another reason why people don’t achieve their fitness new year’s resolution is that people only focus on the long term aspect.
What’s Your Why
Something you need to consider when setting a fitness new years resolution is that of knowing your Why. When you dig deep into the real reason WHY you want to achieve. The most common goal i hear is that of “i want to get fit”. Get fit could mean 100 different things. Ask yourself WHY you want to get fit and repeat the process 5 times. This will help you find your real why.
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Short term behavioral goals set you up for success
Every outcome goal MUST have a short term component to it. Think of it as the steps that lead towards your outcome goal. By achieving these short term goals, every time you can check one of, you’ll get that dopamine feeling I talked about earlier. This is great for long term progress and helping you achieve your fitness new year’s resolution.
Here’s a great example of how to break down your goal.
Develop your skills that accompany your behavioral goals
It’s great to set come behavioral goals, but if you don’t have the skill to achieve it then you will just stay in the same spot. Developing new skills enables you to increase your awareness to your goal and ability to further increase the chance of achieving it.
Here are some examples of how to tie in skills with a behavioral goal
- Make more consistent food choices – The Skill = Eat slower, be aware of any hunger cues during your meal
Factor in your real life situations
If achieving our goal was easy, then nobody would have any worries in the world. Our daily lifestyle brings new challenges every day, whether that be your friends, family or work environment, there will always be barriers that will effect your ability to achieve your goal. The more aware of these barriers, the better chance you can overcome these and achieve your fitness new year’s resolution this year.
NEED SOME MORE HELP?
Setting goals is great but without accountability, you will most likely struggle to achieve your full potential. No matter where you live, Outer Strength Fitness are the experts in helping you become the best version of yourself. This is done through a wide range of Transformation Coaching.
