How To Keep New Year’s Fitness Goals
How easy is it to come up with fitness goals? We get excited, motivated, and wishful about achieving our ideal physical appearance. We start to make plans to fit our interests, fitness level, and all time constraints until suddenly sticking to that plan becomes challenging. Figuring out how to stick to a workout routine is tough. Let’s face it, it's much easier to make fitness resolutions than it is to find the sustained exercise motivation to keep them. If exercising and staying healthy is your New Year's resolution, then we’ve got just the guidelines for you.
Give your body a chance to adapt and build a new body. Before starting your fitness journey, it is necessary to understand the importance of fully committing yourself to your workouts. Working out once a week does not allow your body to become accustomed to the stress, adapt to the new conditions. It is necessary to exercise regularly to enable the body to build up strength, endurance, and stamina. To see any form of change, you have to give your body the chance to adapt to the physical stress of working out, and doing that at least 2 to 3 times a week.
A 6-Step Guide to Achieving Your Fitness Goals
- Train first thing in the morning. After a busy day of work, socializing, running errands, and everything in between that life can throw at you, working out in the evening is less likely to happen. Prioritize your training. Wake up early and take the time to get it done. You will feel fantastic to have the rest of your day ahead with your session already complete.
- Have a reason. Discover your fitness goals, specifically why, what, how, and who. Your 'why' determines your reason for starting your fitness journey. The 'what' makes you investigate your goals. 'How' requires you to sit down and write down your goals. 'Who' refers to your surroundings, which means you must associate yourself with like-minded people to keep you on track.
- Surround yourself with inspiration. Inspiration isn’t just found on Instagram or YouTube; it is also found in your social circle. It is said you are the product of the five people you spend the most time with. Befriend the gym bunny you know and join classes or clubs for something you might enjoy. If your friends are going to the gym or running club, you will naturally want to go too. Use the human psyche to your advantage. Having a workout buddy means being accountable to someone other than yourself. This is good because it can keep you from skipping your exercise session when you are not feeling into it.
- Break your exercise goals down into small steps. Start small. The more small steps you take, the easier it is to make it more manageable and doable. It can get frustrating when reaching your goals takes longer to achieve. Instead, focus on bigger goals and break your journey into smaller milestones. Each small win should be celebrated and motivate you to keep moving towards your fitness goals. Once you start meeting your goals, the motivation to go on and the willingness to commit to the journey come easy. Keep in mind, goals are not reached overnight.
- You can do anything for 5 minutes. If you find your motivation dropping or disappearing, commit to moving for just 5 minutes. After all, you can do just about anything for that short amount of time. Set a timer if you must. If you need to stop after 5 minutes, know that you still did something good for yourself. You will find that once you start, you are willing to keep going.
- Pay for your workouts. Paying for your workouts will remind you of the money that will be wasted if you do not commit to your sessions. If you do not show up to the gym, you are not just cheating yourself out of the benefits you would have gotten by exercising, but you are also wasting your money. Paying to workout makes you more committed to sticking with it.
Do not compare yourself to others
Comparison is the thief of joy. You may feel like there is always someone stronger, faster, or more flexible than you are. Would it not be better to remember that everyone had to start somewhere and work up to where they are today? Also, keep in mind that what others can do has no bearing on you personally. The only thing that matters is what you can do. Focus on your successes and goals and you will stay more committed to your fitness journey.