For many people, the beginning of a new year is also the chance for a new beginning. For most, fitness and weight are at the top of achievements every year, but by mid-January most people have already fallen away from their goals and forgotten about their dreams.
“I once heard someone say that cemeteries are the richest place in the world as that’s where most people’s dreams end up”
In order to make exercise a priority for the year we need to get realistic about a couple of things.
The first is that in order to add something to your daily routine you need to remove something. Yes that’s right, you need to sacrifice something. I hear it all the time, “I’m going to start exercising next week” to which I always reply, when are you going to do it in your day and what are you willing to give up in order to do it?
The response is usually a blank gaze as they compute what I’ve just said and the realization hits that they just do not have the time to exercise.
The second is that you need a really positive motivation for wanting to do it. People will want to change the way they live because they’re either running away from something they hate “desperate” or they’re running towards something they love “inspired”.
Unfortunately for most, desperation is the driver and they’re generally running away from something negative such as the fear of health consequences, the way they look or the way they feel.
This is a major problem for most people as it forms their motivation. So when we have that dark raining morning with terrible cold weather, the talk they have with themselves is a negative one. “You need to run today because you know if you don’t you won’t ‘feel’ any better!”
When this chatter occurs over and over you start associating that negativity with the activity. The general result for most is a want to run away from this feeling. So naturally, they stop the exercise and whatever changes are associated with their goals.
Whilst it seems quite weird that people will associate the tool that could save them with negativity, the brain only looks at the motivation behind it. So we ned to play the game and switch our brains into a different thought process.
So, here’s my top tips to succeed in 2020!
- Focus on the excitement of achievement, not the things you’re running from – Want to lose weight? Purchase a piece of clothing a size down that you love or enter a fitness event that you have never achieved before. Now you’re truly committed to the cause and focussed on the desire, not the negative
- Steal from your night, not your day – If you want to get fit, you’ll need to exercise. An hour a day is a lot to give up, it’s a big sacrifice. But what do you do in the last hour of your day? This is where you want to do it but exercising here will alter cortisol your stress hormone and prevent you from sleeping. Try getting up an hour earlier and doing your hour then. You’ll be more tired in the evening, go to bed earlier and steal your hour from this dead time rather than from your day.
- Truly commit with accountability – Arrange to meet someone at a certain location at a certain time each session. NEVER let them down! This will help you stop that crazy struggling to get out of bed early feeling.
Setting new years resolutions can be great, but they can also be an enormous failure. Remember it can take 30 days to make a habit and a routine. After that it gets easy. So put in for the next 30 days and have the best year ever this year!