Keeping Your New Year’s Fitness Resolution
The New Year is here again. Do you have a New Year’s Resolution? Well, if you’re like most Singaporeans, you’ll have at least one resolution. And, if you are like the majority of these promise-makers, your resolution is probably related to health and fitness.
About 55 percent wanted to lose weight, 50 percent resolved to exercise more, and 38 percent promised to eat healthier.
While resolutions are well-intentioned, unfortunately most people fail at keeping them. With all the hype surrounding these promises, it’s easy to get caught up in the hype without really taking them seriously.
We live in a throw-away society and even our resolutions, I’m afraid, are not immune. However, especially for promises that include improving our health, it’s in our best interest to take them seriously.
So, what’s the secret to successful resolutions? While you can’t wave a magic wand and make your resolution come true, there are some easy steps to take that will make it easier to fulfill your promise to yourself.
- Choose an obtainable goal. Resolving to look like a super model is not realistic for the majority of us, but promising to include daily physical activity in our lives is very possible.
- Avoid choosing a resolution that you’ve been unsuccessful at achieving year after year. This will only set you up for failure, frustration and disappointment. If you are still tempted to make a promise that you’ve made before, then try altering it. For example, instead of stating that you are going to lose 15kg, try promising to eat healthier and increase your weekly exercise.
- Create a game plan. At the beginning of January, write a comprehensive plan. All successful businesses start with a business plan that describes their mission and specifics on how they will achieve it. Write your own personal plan and you’ll be more likely to succeed as well.
- Break it down and make it less intimidating. Rather than one BIG goal, dissect it into smaller pieces. Set several smaller goals to achieve throughout the year that will help you to reach the ultimate goal. Then, even if you aren’t able to reach your final goal, you will have many smaller, but still significant, achievements along the way. For example, if your goal is to complete a 10KM race, your smaller goals could be running a 5KM in less than 30 minutes, adding upper and lower body strength training to increase your muscular endurance, and running 2.4KM with a personal best completion time.
- Ask friends and family members to help you so you have someone to be accountable to. Just be sure to set limits so that this doesn’t backfire and become more irritating than helpful. For example, if you resolve to be more positive ask them to gently remind you when you start talking negatively.
- Reward yourself with each milestone. If you’ve stuck with your resolution for 2 months, treat yourself to something special. But, be careful of your reward type. If you’ve lost 3kg, don’t give yourself a piece of cake as an award. Instead, treat yourself to something non-food related, like a professional massage.
- Don’t do it alone! Get professional assistance. Everyone needs help and sometimes a friend just isn’t enough. Sometimes you need the help of a trained professional. Don’t feel that seeking help is a way of copping out. Especially when it comes to fitness, research studies have shown that assistance from fitness professionals greatly improves success rate.
- Limit your number of promises. You’ll spread yourself too thin trying to make multiple changes in your life. This will just lead to failure of all of the resolutions.
On average only about 30% of us keep our New Year’s resolutions. Unfortunately, some of the biggest failures are found in fitness resolutions. But don’t let the statistics get you down. By following the tips above you’ll be better equipped to fall into the successful 30% category.
I have faith that you can! So let’s do it!
Let me know if you need any help.
Yours in sports & fitness,
Albert.
berdytan@singnet.com.sg
91110270
