Did you know that roughly 80% of resolutions made every year are thrown to the wayside, usually by mid-February?
This is one of the reasons we’re sending this blog out now: it’s around this time of the month that many people realize that, while setting an extremely high goal for themselves is good, it may not be sustainable.
If that’s you, don’t worry. Typically, there’s nothing wrong with our New Year’s resolutions … we just simply haven’t framed them correctly to be accomplished within our current lifestyles.
Here we’re breaking down popular resolutions that are typically never reached, and how you can instead set solid goals for yourself that you can actually accomplish!
New Year’s Resolutions To Overhaul
1. “Lose a HUGE Amount of Weight”
Let’s start with the New Year’s elephant in the room: weight loss!
Weight loss is definitely one of the most popular resolutions that people set when the new year rolls around, but it’s also one of the hardest goals to achieve, especially if you’re aiming to drop a significant number of pounds.
Weight loss involves some pretty big behavior changes and lifestyle shifts, and unless you’re actively making the commitment and working on all of those small changes for the long run, that huge number is going to seem like a lifetime away.
Resolution to Make Instead:
If you want to make that huge weight loss goal more meaningful and achievable, you can break it down into a series of smaller, more specific resolutions instead.
For example, making your goal to track your eating habits every day or to lose five pounds by the end of the month is much more realistic and achievable than keeping your eyes only on the endgame of, say, losing fifty pounds.
2. “Workout Out Every Day”
A lot of people want to kick it into overdrive at the start of the New Year and swear to hit the gym every single day.
This might be realistic for some people, but if you’re starting from scratch, you’re probably going to face some real challenges making this happen. Even though we know that exercise is important for our health and physique, aiming to work out every single day just isn’t always realistic, and you might find yourself discouraged and giving up when life circumstances dictate you miss a couple of training sessions.
Also, those rest days are really important. Setting aside a couple of days to take a break from your workouts have been shown to help you recover and build muscle [*]. You’ll also be less likely to get burned out from all of that hard work, so you can give it your all and make it count even more when you do work out.
Resolution to Make Instead:
Instead of aiming to hit the gym and go all out every single day, try aiming for quality movement on the daily instead.
3. “Try That New, Trendy Diet”
Fad and “crash” diets are everywhere, and they are generally a bad answer for weight loss. Maybe your friends are all jumping on board, or someone at work swears by it, but the results from those fad diets you keep hearing about are hard to maintain. Even worse, sometimes they’re even harder on your body.
Studies on popular fad diets have found that they might work for weight loss in the short-term, but they can also contribute to health problems. For example, cutting out an extreme amount of carbs and replacing them with fats can lead to an increased risk of heart disease. [*]
Resolution to Make Instead:
Sure, there are several ways that you can lose weight, but it doesn’t mean that these fad diets are good for you. Unless you want to get stuck in the same cycle of losing and regaining the same pounds, shift your focus. Avoid diets that dictate extreme changes and make goals around nutritious and balanced eating instead for healthy weight loss that will last.
4. “Buy an Expensive Workout Machine OR An Expensive Gym Membership
It seems like every year there’s some new “it” piece of workout equipment or a trending fitness class. The problem with all those shiny fitness ploys is that their marketing usually makes them seem like the solution to all your problems – essentially, they make you think that by cashing in and buying them, you’ll look and feel better instantly.
Sure, using them can be great – but there’s no magic ingredient for health and fitness. The only thing that really matters is effort and hard work.
They can absolutely be good tools to get you where you want to be, but buying them is not a substitute for committing to putting in the work. If you want to invest in them, you should also make some specific resolutions that center around you actually using them consistently enough to get good results.
Resolution to Make Instead:
If you want an affordable gym and training solution at your fingertips everyday, try the Durable Athlete App here!
5. “Look Just Like (insert Fitness Influencer here)”
One of the best ways to set yourself up for disappointment is to base your health and fitness goals around aesthetics alone, especially if your aim is to look like someone else.
Could it happen? Sure. But more often than not, you’re going to have a different body type and lifestyle than the person you’re aiming to emulate.
Resolution to Make Instead:
Focus more on getting yourself to a fit and healthy place than someone else’s, or else you’re just going to be chasing someone else’s standards and never reach your own.
6. “Be Healthier”
Obviously, the sentiment on this resolution is a good one, and one that we can fully get behind. But if you want to make it a reality, you’ve got to dig a little deeper. Whether it means eating better or moving more or some other healthy achievement, you should have more specific goals for each behavior, rather than health on its own.
Resolution to Make Instead:
Get specific on what “health” looks like. Will you add more vegetables to every meal? Will you cut out sugar completely? Will you get a full 8 hours of sleep?
There’s nothing inherently wrong about making these goals – getting healthy is what we’re all about! But they are super vague and way more likely to end up like many other lofty New Years’ resolutions – forgotten in a couple of months.
Here’s how you can make resolutions that actually stick in 2021:
- Get super specific. As with all goalsetting, your resolution aims should be specific and measurable. Making sure you fully understand what needs to be done will make it that much more likely that you’ll make it happen, rather than leaving it vague and up in the air.
- Make sure you’re giving yourself a realistic timeline. One of the best ways to make your goals become a reality is by giving yourself an achievable timeframe to accomplish them. This is especially true for those bigger goals like weight loss, where you have to work at it constantly. Set up a realistic timeline to give you the push.
- Make sure it’s something you can actually do. It’s important to be honest with yourself when you’re setting goals. A good goal should be an uncomfortable stretch that makes you work hard, but it shouldn’t be so far out of reach that you can’t do it at all.
- Prioritize sustainable changes. With any goals, and especially with health-based goals, they’re only meaningful if you can sustain them. You might not want to make resolutions that are a complete 180 to your current lifestyle, unless you’re positive that you can maintain it!
We all find ourselves picturing what we’ll be like when we become that best version of ourselves, and this year, setting the right goals can be key to making it happen. Make your resolutions realistic for the best results and really make this year your best yet.