Fresh Start: Making Your Resolutions Work

Hey! Remember back in January when you made those resolutions and promised yourself that this would be the year that you held strong? How’s that going for you?

If you’re like most of the rest of the world, today doesn’t look quite as fit/slim/healthy/energized/flexible/strong/powerful as you thought it was going to look back on Jan 1. We make resolutions during the craziest time of the year, when we have parties to go to every weekend, gift swaps and feasts to attend. By the beginning of the new year we’re SO ready for a new, better, healthier, more energized and less fuzzy-headed self.

And for a while, you were on a roll! The gym 5 days a week? Easy peasy. Cleaning up your diet and skipping the office snacks? No problem. Then February arrived with some more stuck-in-your-house temps and winter sky falling and your willpower hiccupped, as willpower can do. Then March rolled in and all sense of motivation went out the window.

Thing is, that inspiration and will power that motivated you at the start does not come in endless supply. We use will power to get over far too many obstacles on a daily basis to have enough left in March to keep us at those goals of glory.

So what do you do? You use the motivation you do have to plan and to create practices and healthy habits that will support you long after will power has waved goodbye. And you don’t need a New Year to do that.

What to do TODAY:

1. Re-realize your resolution. Think back to the resolution that you made in January. Does it still resonate with you? If it does, great! Write it down. If it doesn’t, ask yourself why. What’s changed? How did something that mattered so much just a few short months ago not mean enough to pursue now? Something must have altered your mindset. Now, what does resonate? Decide on a resolution that really means something to you now. Write it down.
2. Make it actionable. What practices and healthy habits do you need to adopt to accomplish your goal? If the goal is to finish a 10k, how do you work towards that? You run X times per week, you train hills, you do tempo runs, you cross-train… This is where you plan to beat will power. Make an action plan that you can follow, checking off your accomplishments each day so that when you run out of will power, you still have something to motivate you.
3. Connect new habits to old habits. It’s tough to form new habits out of the blue. Connect them to habits you already have. If you always have coffee first thing in the morning, make a green smoothie at the same time. If you always go for a walk with your dog, up the pace and turn it into a 10-minute run.
4. Remind yourself that perfection is NOT the goal. Progress is the goal. Better is the goal. That means that if you skip the gym on a workout day, all is not lost. Maybe you take the stairs instead of the elevator or run an extra mile tomorrow to make up for it. Or maybe you don’t, and that’s okay too.

#GameOn

You have what it takes to reach your goals, but a bit of help never hurts. Ready for a refresh? This 90-Day Fresh Start program is designed to push you in the direction of your goals with nutrition guidance, exercise and workouts designed with your specific goal in mind and some of my personal strategies and tools. Maybe all you need is a Fresh Start.