Brett Curtis
While 45% of Americans say they usually make New Year’s resolutions, only 8% are actually successful in achieving their goals. We’re so aware of our inability to stick with resolutions, there's 2 full days dedicated to our failures: Ditch Your Resolution Day on January 17th and Fall Off the Wagon day on February 4th. It's important that we continue to grow and achieve more in life because it makes life more satisfying.
Accomplishing goals helps to keep us self confident which makes us more secure with ourselves and happier. When you start doing the things you always say you're going to do, you develop confidence in yourself because you stop lying to yourself. You can finally trust You to do what You tell You You can do! If you continue this and apply it to your life you can really achieve anything that you wish. That is why I believe personal fitness is an excellent way to become successful in life! No matter what your goal is, here are some simple methods I have found to be useful in my own life to keep me on the right track.
Keep it simple!
Track your progress
Find your "why"
Fake it till you make it!
Reward yourself
Keep it simple
Start small! remember, when you're trying to eat an elephant, it's better to take small bites! You may feel like you're ready to completely submerge yourself in your goals and start doing everything your want to do at once but that is a bad idea! You will come out of the starting blocks too hot and burn yourself out long before you achieve any of the goals you set out to accomplish. Start with small changes here, if you're trying to lose 100 lbs you should figure out realistically that's going to take you a while, maybe a year, maybe a few years. Just start with the first pound! Try to lose 1 lb a week (A good way to see if you're losing weight is weigh yourself at the same time every day (first thing in the morning after you use the bathroom is a good time for consistency) and only worry about your weekly average. Same way you'd go about building your savings account at the bank, you would only be able to make small deposits over time that will add up to a larger sum in the future.
Track your progress
In a perfect world you would remember everything you ate, drank and what you did for exercise in a day without issue. Unfortunately, we tend to conveniently forget that donut we ate or the half ass workout we did that day when tolling up how well we did accomplishing our goals for the day. Write it down. Keep a daily journal of what you ate, drank and what you did in the gym everyday so you can keep tracking your progress (if you're serious) and look back on what your hopefully building too. This will help reinforce these major lifestyle changes your may be implementing and can also give you satisfaction seeing your hard work recorded on paper.
Find your "Why?"
Why are you doing this? Think deeply about what you want here and why you want it. Do you want to get a better body to attract a partner? Do you want to get healthy so you can have a more fulfilling life with your children and grandchildren? Do you want to get healthy because you feel like you owe it to your partner, to yourself? Really think about why you want to change and what you want to be.
Fake it till you make it!
You may feel silly starting out, or like you don't belong here in the gym it's ok, it happened to almost all of us here when we started out. Just keep going! It's going to feel weird because you've never been here before, of course its going to be a little uncomfortable, it's ok, it will get more comfortable the more time you spend here. Kind of like getting into a cool pool of water, at first it feels extremely uncomfortable and your body is kind of freaking out telling you to get out, but eventually you adapt to the change and it will start to feel good! Much like anything worth doing, it may be uncomfortable or awkward at first but it's the only way to learn and it's only temporary. Don't listen to your inner biotch and just get to work! Everyone else is just as worried about themselves and probably won't even notice what you're doing anyway, don't be so critical!
Reward yourself
When you set out after your ultimate goal, set some milestones that are accomplished with metrics from the gym ie weight lifted, miles ran or with your weight (losing 4 lbs in a month) and give yourself an appropriate reward. So long as it doesn't derail the whole thing and lead you back into your old ways. For me it's a half gallon of ice cream with the wife or a few slices of pizza when I've done well and have earned it. You will know when you deserve it or not. If you really believe you do, by all means go ahead! Keeping it fun will help keep you on track for the long haul. remember lifestyle changes are supposed to be permanent you can't lose 100 lbs and go right back to your old ways expecting to keep it off.
Good luck friends and thank you for reading!
Brett
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