By now, if you know me personally or are a follower of the blog, you know that I am not a fan of traditional New Years Resolutions. I think if you are making one the way most people do, you are setting yourself up for disappointment and I would bet that you don't last 3 weeks. What do you think will happen on January 1st to magically spur you on towards your goals? If you want something badly enough, set your goal, make a game plan and persist until you achieve it. January 1st is no easier than December 29 to start making strides towards your goal. With that bit out of the way, I know you are going to give yourself a New Years Resolution, or two, or three. With that in mind, let's tackle how I think you should set these up.
Although I think this approach will work for any resolution you make, let's talk fitness or health or weight loss, what ever you want to call it. First pick ONE thing. Please don't say, "This year, I am going to get serious about losing weight, or I am going to lose weight, or exercise more or a host of other broad, useless goals. Take a sheet of paper and hand write out your goal. If you are heavy, then losing an amount of weight is a fine goal. If you are overweight, let's say " I will lose 10 pounds in January, 10 pounds in February, and 10 pounds in March." Boom! 30 pounds lighter by April. If you need to lose weight then steal that one from me. However, I don't think everyone needs to lose weight, most people want to look better naked which is a combination of losing bodyfat and building lean muscle. The number on the scale may not change or it may increase (same for you girls). This one is a tougher one to measure since it is fairly subjective. How about taking out a piece of paper and writing down, " I will perform 15 workouts using weights in January. I will perform 15 conditioning workouts in January." Repeat this for February and March. If you were to do this, you will definitely achieve your goals. Simple, but not easy. Write it on a piece of paper and hang it on the fridge in plain sight. Let's look at this even further and break it into steps:
1. Hand write goal, hang it on fridge. Goal must be very specific and carry a deadline, no open ended commitments. Feel free to steal the 15 and 15 one. The more I think about it, the more I like it.
2. Tell everyone about it. Post it on facebook, ask close friends and family to hold you accountable and be your support team. Its tougher to let others down than yourself.
3. You need to go to CVS, or better yet steal one from the supply closet at work, but get yourself a notebook dedicated to your goal. Now everyday write down what you did to get you closer to your goal. With a marker or red pen, at the end of every day, put a large Win or Loss for how you would rate your performance for that day (nutrition and workout for the day).
4. Keep in mind, not everyone goes undefeated. Let's shoot for 12 wins and 3 losses or better through 15 days. Let's also keep tally of weight workouts and cardio/conditioning workouts for the month. See if you can get to 15 and 15. If you get to 12 and 11, and normally you would do 6 and 6 for a month, we are on our way.
5. Let's take it month by month and day by day versus Lose 50 pounds in 2010. Let's lose 4.166 pounds per month instead and tackle it that way.
Now, if you need more specific help fire me an email at tom@sullivantrainingsystems.com. If you want a plan, that will cost you a couple of bucks. If you have a simple question, that will be free of charge.
PS. Think about joining a 3 day per week class to help you hit your goals. While I think I offer a great program, not everyone can get to Weymouth during the week, so email me if you want to train with me once a week.
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