These are the tips that I’ve found work best with myself and with clients. I suggest trying all of them as they are all complementary and combined will help this be your most successful year when it comes to keeping your resolutions.
I notice that most people don’t put enough thought into establishing their goals properly. The more vague the goal the harder it is to measure progress towards it. It’s important that you know why you’re exercising and what you’re committing to, then you can accurately measure the return on investment of time, energy and resources.
This doesn’t mean that you should research endlessly before you begin, that’s a clear form of procrastination. There is no perfect diet, and no perfect program so don’t waste time looking for them, and you should be ready to change your approach as your body and health changes.
I recommend that you pick 2 or 3 measures to track consistently.
At the start of the process it is important to have an accountability partner – someone to help you stay accountable to your goals. This can be vertical-accountability from a coach, or horizontal-accountability from a friend, colleague or partner. Having someone to hold you accountable is the secret ingredient that converts intention into consistent action.
If you enjoy eating meat, don’t jump into Veganuary. If you enjoy having a glass of wine don’t commit to a teetotal existence. Build skills that are relevant to you, your lifestyle and your values.
The more you feel that you are making sacrifices the more you will subconsciously reward yourself in the future and the harder it will be to make your new, better habits stick. Whatever your goals, make sure that the road map to achieving them is one which you can enjoy or at least grow to enjoy.
Just because you miss one workout, or have a day when you eat food that you didn’t intend to eat doesn’t mean that you should give up on your goals or feel discouraged or disappointed with yourself. Get back into it the next day and you’ll soon be back on track. Almost nobody sticks to a new lifestyle perfectly, so you should expect that there will be a few bumps along the way. If you allow yourself to get back up whenever you temporarily slip-up you’ll quickly learn that persistence is more important than perfection.
We experience our daily lives based on our own perspective. If you choose to focus on negative aspects of anything you are much more likely to give up than if you try to keep your focus on the positive progress you do make. This is how I live my life, and it makes dealing with unforeseen circumstances and adversity much less stressful.
People put too much pressure on themselves to see immediate results without actually putting measures in place to objectively gauge the outcome of these changes.
Eyeballing progress in the mirror won’t cut it.
Measuring your progress gamifies the experience and greatly increases your chances of success by helping you notice the gradual changes in your body.
At ATP Personal Training we help clients in a number of ways. We help them to gain clarity around their goals, we work with them to engineer a strategy that is realistic but ambitious and we help clients to execute. Most people are full of good intentions and we help to transform these good, but vague intentions into disciplined execution.
We recommend our personal training programs as the best way to put your New Year’s Resolutions into action and stick with them the whole year round! We can help you will all aspects of achieving a healthy lifestyle, from diet, lifestyle choices and habits, and of course exercise, all in an effective but sustainable way.
Everyone benefits from the experience we have to offer! You can get started now, simply complete and submit the form below. Or read more about what we offer for clients like yourself at the links below.
*Results will vary from individual to individual
**Results are based on each client’s circumstances.
