3 Tips to Dominate Your New Year’s Resolutions

3 Tips to Dominate Your New Year’s Resolutions

The end of the year is closing in, and it’s time to evaluate whether you accomplished your goals this past year.

It’s also time to figure out your goals for next year.

Now, you don’t need to see the statistics. You already know people who set “New Year’s Resolutions” are the butt of jokes in January.

Everyone is gung-ho about losing weight or getting in a new workout routine at the beginning of the year, but then the majority of people fall off before achieving their goal.

So how do you avoid becoming one of the many who fail?

This point can’t be emphasized enough.

If you have a “start” date, there’s inevitably going to be an “end” date.

If you want to achieve something, why are you waiting until a date in the future to start? Take a small action right now.

Transforming your body isn’t an all-or-nothing thing.

You don’t need to go “on a diet,” join a gym, start working six days per week and cut out processed foods all at once.

In fact, that’s likely setting you up for failure.

Start doing something right now.

You can start by eating only until satisfied or eating slowly and setting your utensils down between bites.

You can start by getting up 15-30 minutes earlier every morning to exercise.

Choose something simple that you can do right now.

If you wait until the New Year to start, you’re going to be even farther behind where you are now.

That’s going to make things even harder for you.

So make it easy on yourself and take a small action step toward changing your body right now.

Setting big goals at the beginning of the year can oftentimes scare and overwhelm us.

That’s why we need to re-evaluate our current goals and set new goals every quarter.

If you want to lose 60 pounds next year, break it down into smaller chunks. Aim to lose 15 pounds each quarter.

So your first quarter (January through March) goal can be to lose 15 pounds. Then, once you achieve that goal, aim to lose another 15 pounds in the second quarter (April through June) of the year.

It’s much easier for most people to focus on short-term goals than it is to focus on long-term goals.

Long-term goals are important, but many of us tend to set only long-term goals when we make our resolutions.

Break it down, and keep it simple.

Setting a goal to “get fit,” “lose weight” or “get into shape” is setting you up for failure.

Why?

Because you have no idea how to determine whether you achieve it.

Specific goals get specific results.

Unspecific goals get unspecific results.

Do you want to “get in shape?” What does that mean? Does that mean you want to lose weight?

If you want to lose weight, how much weight do you want to lose? 10 pounds? 20 pounds?

Do you want to tighten your waist? How many inches do you want to lose? What pants size do you want to fit into?

And once you have your specific goal (and specific deadline by which you’re going to achieve it), you can figure out your specific action steps.

Instead of saying you’re going to “workout” or “eat better,” determine specifically how you’re going to workout or eat better.

Are you going to strength train three times per week following a progressive program designed by a coach? Are you going to follow a specific macronutrient prescription or eat at least three servings of vegetables per day?

Give yourself specific action steps. When you set specific goals and action steps, you’ll have a heck of a lot more success achieving your goal(s) next year.