The holidays are over you Christmas-ham-eating, eggnog-slurping, candy-laden, lazy-Susan abusers. It’s time to resolve to be a better, healthier, more fit version of yourself. And don’t give me that “New year, new me!” crap. Just because it’s January 1st doesn't mean you all of a sudden don’t love eating bacon and watching Game of Thrones on your friend’s HBO Go account. But this year? You have me. I’m going to teach you how you can improve those New Year’s resolutions and make them last longer than Allen Iverson’s music career.
Just like being a community college graduate with a blog doesn't make you a writer, setting a New Year’s resolution doesn't mean you have set a goal. One of the most common resolutions people have every year is to lose weight. Unfortunately this barely qualifies as a resolution, nowhere close to being a goal, not quite a concept, maybe almost a notion. The “goal” of losing weight is as vague as the end of “Inception.” In order for something to be a goal there are a few simple requirements.
When setting a goal, be specific.
How much weight do you want to lose? Being even pickier, when do you want to lose it by? These two simple questions will give centralize your idea and help set up a plan to achieve that goal.
Alright, so now you have your goal of losing 30 pounds before Valentine’s day because I’ll be damned if I am spending another Valentine’s day drunk by myself at the Olive Garden...
Kevin Spacey says it best. Always.
Goals have to be achievable.
Setting a goal is like cooking bacon. You have to cook it to the right amount of crispiness without burning or undercooking it. That is, in goal setting there exists a sweet spot between a goal that is too easy and a goal that is too difficult. (For those of you keeping score, that is two bacon references.) Set a goal that will challenge you but not one that is so difficult that it will scare you away.
So now we have taken your ambiguous/ambitious resolution and turned it into a specific, time- bound, achievable goal. What used to be, “I want to lose weight,” now sounds more like “I will lose 15 pounds by April 1st.” Or “I want to get stronger,” is now quantified as “I want to increase all of my power lifts by 10 lbs by March 1st.” See how much cleaner that sounds?!
Your next step is to make a plan. For everything. Things like when and where you will work out, what you will do on days that you can’t work out, what you’re going to eat, when you are going to cook, when you are going to grocery shop. Having flexible contingency plans for different situations will make you more successful in the long run.
Planning is the most difficult and most important step of goal setting.
Planning how you will achieve your goal can often be tedious and time consuming. Once your plan is set you will find that following through with that plan is much easier than you thought.
Last and certainly not least is going out and doing it. Follow through with your plan. Whether your plan involves eating healthier, adding more physical activity to your daily routine, or spending 3 hours at the gym every day; get out and do it! But I’m going to let you in on a big secret.
You are going to fail.
How is that for positivity? When I say fail, I don’t necessarily mean you won’t achieve your goal; I mean your plan is going to fall apart. You are going to stumble and end up on the couch waiting for that second box of macaroni and cheese to finish cooking instead of being at the gym. And that is completely okay. We all fall off the fitness wagon from time to time. The important thing is to dust those potato chip crumbs off your t-shirt and get back to it.
While this entry has centered around weight loss, it is important to note that these goal setting tips can be used for any type of fitness related goal. Set a specific, time-bound, achievable goal, make a plan, and go out and become a better, healthier, more fit version of yourself!
With good health and strong hamstrings,
Mike
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