Are you on top of your 2020 fitness and wellbeing resolutions?
How to create 2020 fitness goals that are achievable
It is estimated that only 8% of people stick to their New Year’s resolutions. Everyone starts off with good intentions at the beginning of January that this is the year they will keep to them and get the body of their dreams by dieting and exercising.
But four weeks in when the truth hits home, you remember you hate getting up early to go for a run or a trip to the gym and you’d rather have a plate of chips than yet another bowl of brown rice or quinoa? The key to being successful and sticking to your fitness goals is to be realistic. If you’re serious that 2020 is the year you’ll eat clean, never skip leg day and shed that annoying half a stone that just won’t budge, read on for our New Year’s cheat sheet. This is how to set fitness goals that you’ll be able stick to.
#1: Set realistic goals – no all or nothing mentality!
The New Year is a great motivator for making a new start but you have to be honest with yourself and what your current state of fitness is and how good you are at sticking to a diet.
Making major lifestyle changes undermines your ability to stick to your objectives. At the moment gyms are rammed with people kicking off the New Year with their keep fit resolution but come March 80% of those will have ditched the gym. Some will have left because they have achieved what they needed but the vast majority because they cannot keep to the punishing schedule they set themselves.
Set yourself up for success by ditching the all-or-nothing mentality and focus on smaller more achievable goals instead.
#2: Set SMART goals
Identifying a specific area where you want to see improvements can help you to stick to your resolve. Rather than saying “I want to be fitter” think about what that really means to you. Do you want to finish a 10k run? Make it to two Metafit classes a week? Lift a certain weight? Apply the same mentality to your training as you do work and create S.M.A.R.T goals Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely.
#3: Plan
If you are a project manager you know the old saying, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. This applies to your New Year’s resolutions too. If you want to get fitter by going to more classes at the gym, get hold of the new timetable and identify which classes best suit your schedule. If you want to make changes to your diet, such as cutting out red meat or eating more veggies, research a few easy recipes that you can prep ahead or buy a blender so it’s easier to whip up a post-workout smoothie.
#4: Be accountable
If you’ve identified a fitness goal that you really want to stick to, you must own it. Find someone to work out with and let them know what your goal is or make it public via social media so friends can keep you motivated. Create your own blog and monitor your progress with photos, weights and measurements.