New Year – New You? FUCK THAT!

So it’s New Years resolution time, which means half the population is giving themselves unrealistic expectations about ‘getting healthy’.

If you approach a new health and fitness regime in January expecting to get results – you wont. Going from overstuffed, mince pie scoffing, mulled wine swilling, cigarette smoking Christmas couch potato to 5 day a week, veggie eating, water training machine is a recipe for failure IF you don’t have a well laid out plan and clear, achievable goals. So here’s my TOP 5 TIPS TO STICK TO YOUR NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION

1). Goals

If you want to achieve anything you’ve got to set goals. Real goals. Not ‘get healthy’.. that’s not a goal – that’s a mission statement at best. You need to be able to say I want to lose 15kg of fat, or I want to be able to squat without pain or run 5km. More than anything it needs to be something you actually want to do. Don’t use someone elses goal, set a goal for YOURSELF that you really WANT.
2). Planning

You’ve got to have a plan. Something that helps you achieve your goal – and it has to be all encompassing. You’ve got to take into account the time you need to put aside, the food prep so you will eat to achieve your goal, the shopping in advance to buy the food. You need to sit down and fully think out what you need to do in order to achieve your goal.
3). Steps

So you’ve got a goal and you’ve got a plan, now you need to work out the steps it’s going to take to reach your goal. Daily steps, weekly steps and monthly steps. Today it might be – shave 1 minute off my run time, or it lose 2lbs this week. You need to break down how you are going to reach your goal in realistic, measurable steps.
4). Support

You’ve got to have support! Whether that’s a team, a coach, your mum, your partner it doesn’t matter. You need someone, or even better lots of people to help you achieve your goals. There will be plenty of people out there who will put stumbling blocks in your way whether through ignorance or jealousy – if you don’t have people to support you, you’re gonna have an uphill battle.
5). Find something you enjoy

Whatever your goal is find a way to enjoy the process, it’ll help you stick to it long term and help you turn your goal into a passion, into a lifelong process of improvement. If you hate running, don’t run. If you don’t enjoy it you’ll never ever be able to truly commit to it. Find a coach, or a bunch of people who share your passion who you can have fun with, and it will feel like release not work.