New Years Resolution Blues

New Years Resolutions are fading or, more likely, long gone. The novelty of posting on instagram with your daily fitness update seems silly now. Your progress has stunted and the couch and a bag of chips have become your besties again. If this is you, you are in the norm. More than half of people who set a resolution are centering it around health/fitness. Nearly 40 percent of resolutions don’t make it out of January and well over half will not see June.

The statistics are a little depressing for sure, but there’s good news. January 1st is, after all, just a day on the calendar. There isn’t something inherently unique or special about it. Any day of the year can be the reset, re-goal, reorient day. If you are in the falling off or done fell off (little bit of southern for ya) then use today, not tomorrow or the mythical Monday, as your reset point. Make the resolution a monthly, weekly and daily challenge. Have the courage to stick to your plan. It does take courage to chase a goal and be committed to something.

Here’s a checklist to follow when you realize you aren’t following through:

Step 1: Admit you need help and ask for it. Ask a coach, ask a friend, ask somebody to help you be accountable. If you are outside the walls of D5, this is a bit harder. Inside our walls reach out to us, if we haven’t already.

Step 2: Write your goal on paper (whiteboard, computer, mirror, whatever). Ironically (or is it?), we are about to do this at D5. Having goals visible makes them much more real. It is, by itself an accountability tool. Don’t underestimate it.

Step 3: Take baby steps. “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” While cliche it means a lot. In a culture that is all about speed (fast food, grocery pickups, cell phones with everything, etc) we have lost how most progress is made. Slowly. Health and fitness are not light switches where you can flip it and lose 50 pounds in a day, week or month. (Whisper voice to bring you in closer) sometimes weight gain/loss goals take years.

Step 4: Keep track of your progress. Get yourself a cheap notebook and write down (again, there’s power in physically writing something down) each day what you did. At D5 we have a tracking software but there is something about seeing all the work you did on paper day after day. After six, twelve, eighteen months and you look back and what you were doing. It’ll shock you and motivate you.

Don’t be a statistic. Statistics are for math and math is dumb. (Side note: I actually quite enjoy statistics in human behavior and sports #numbers) Be the change you wanted to be three months ago. Be the change you want to be now. Be the person you want to be now. You might not look like it, yet, or feel like it, right now, but you will love how you feel later.