How To Reach Your Resolution
91% of people fail their New Year’s resolution each year!
That’s a scary statistic isn’t it.
It goes to show just how difficult it is to make meaningful change, that ACTUALLY Sticks! …
The truth is that getting results can be hard
(Otherwise we’d all be in great shape, wealthy and with happy relationships)
That being said…
There are steps we can take to greatly increase our chances of hitting our goals!
So in today’s podcast I’m going to walk you through how I help people with that process and essentially provide you with a step-by-step guide on creating a bullet-proof plan to achieve your health & fitness goals!
It Starts With A Vision
Having a vision … is not the same as having a plan or a goal.
I like to think of it as a North Star.
An overarching and guiding vision that gives us the direction we are always moving toward.
Whereas a plan is more like a roadmap, with specific directions to get there.
The vision step is often skipped and people jump straight to goal setting and planning.
But the more people I coach, the more important I realise the vision component is…
Because the more clearly a person can envision their lives having achieved their goal, the more real it becomes to them.
And it starts to become part of their identity.
Then their mindset, actions and habits begin to align with their identity and getting results becomes so much easier!
I have a few examples of some vision related questions for you to answer:
- What does success look like to you?
- How would it feel if you were to achieve your goal?
- How would you know when you’ve made it?
- In what areas of your life would you notice a difference? Work? Relationships? Leisure time? Holidays?
- What would those specific changes be?
- How would that affect your overall happiness?
- What does life look like if you don’t achieve your goal?
These are just a few potential questions you can answer.
But the key is to be HIGHLY SPECIFIC and imagine what it would feel like!
(I suggest writing the answers down)
As I said though, this step is often skipped. And I tend to find there are 2 main reasons for that:
Firstly,
Someone might not see the value in having a vision. Maybe they think it’s a bit wishy washy or cheesy.
But visualisation is actually backed by Science.
A Harvard study looked at a group of Piano Players.
They monitored their brain activity whilst playing the piano.
Then they got another group to just imagine playing the piano… and the same parts of the brain were stimulated as if it was the real thing!
Another similar experiment was done for basketball, where they split students into 2 groups and monitored their scoring percentage 30 days apart.
The mental rehearsal group showed a 23% increase in made shots when re-testing after the 30 days.
And the group that actually practiced their shooting during the 30 days improved by 24%.
These studies show that visualisation and mental rehearsal have a connection to our reality!
And I can see this first-hand in the people I have trained…
The people who have the clearest visions, tend to be the most consistent and motivated.
Another reason someone may struggle to create a vision is that they lack…
Self-Belief.
Maybe they’ve attempted to improve their health & fitness many times before and failed.
Maybe they’ve struggled with being out of shape their entire lives.
Or they have an injury or limitation of some kind.
Or they just feel too busy to focus on their Health & Fitness.
Essentially they just can’t even picture their vision… because they don’t believe it is possible.
This is where we have an opportunity to build buy-in through creating a plan!
Self-Belief will start to grow as our plan yields results!
Creating The Plan
Now we have our vision… we need to move onto setting some goals.
There are 2 types of goals we need to set.
RESULTS-BASED goals
PROCESS-BASED goals
One of the main reasons people’s Resolutions fail is because they set very Vague RESULT-BASED goals.
Like…
“I’m going to Lose weight” or “I’m going to get fit”
Our RESULTS-BASED goal needs to be more specific.
So…
Instead of I’m going to “lose weight” a better goal would be…
“I’d like to focus on losing some body fat between now and March 1st. I’m going to monitor this by comparing a progress picture each week and taking measurements. I’d like to see a noticeable improvement in the photos and see my measurements coming down”
That goal is much better because it’s specific, has a time frame and can be measured.
A RESULTS-BASED goal, gives us something a little bit more specific to focus on and work toward in the medium-term when compared to our bigger VISION…
So it’s a good tool to keep you motivated.
The next step is to create some PROCESS-BASED goals.
These are the day-day or week-week targets that ultimately lead you to your RESULTS-BASED goal.
For example…
If the goal is to lose body fat. Some process based goals you could have are to:
Do x3 Resistance Training workouts per week.
Walk at least 5000 steps a day
Drink 2 Litres of water each day.
Go to bed before 10pm each night.
Eat a low calorie and high protein breakfast in the morning.
Eat to a certain calorie target each day
If we can do these things consistently… we will ultimately get our result!
So I can’t emphasise enough that we need to:
FOCUS ON THE PROCESS … MORE THAN THE GOAL.
One of my favourite quotes is that
“We don’t rise to the level of our goals… we fall to the level of our systems” - James Clear.
No matter how much we want to reach a goal, no matter how motivated we are.
Ultimately it’s our process and our systems that create our outcome.
I have a few PRO-TIPS to help you create a system that will get you results:
Read Atomic Habits - This will help you create habits that are sustainable and you can actually stick to!
Do an audit of your environment - Make sure you identify all the things in your day-day life that can assist or hinder your Health & Fitness.
Create Accountability - Share your fitness on social media, register for a challenge or a photo shoot, Get a gym buddy or friends and family to help you.
Hire a coach - This is the single biggest way to increase your likelihood of success. A skilled and trusted coach will make sure you have covered all of your bases for getting results in the safest and most effective way possible… as well as provide another layer of professional and financial accountability.
Take Action!
Now we have our vision… our goal … and a day-day plan that was put together in an effective way.
It’s time to take action!!
The key is to be consistent and stick to the plan.
Don’t fall into the trap of changing the plan too soon.
In a fitness setting, we call this “programme hopping”
It’s where someone tries a workout programme for a week or 2, then changes it, then changes it again and quite literally hops from one programme to the next.
Why does this happen?
There are several reasons… But I believe the main one is that…
Someone might not feel like they’re not seeing results fast enough…
So they think that making a change will speed it up.
But…
The problem is that they don’t give any programme enough time to start getting results.
Patience is essential to any Health & Fitness Regime.
No single workout will get us in shape… It’s the practice of working out week in and week out that gets us in shape.
Our Health & Fitness is a life-long pursuit.
We may be feeling highly motivated to get in shape as quickly as possible in the New Year!
… maybe we have an important event or holiday coming up.
But there is always going to be another event and anther holiday.
The most important thing to Health & Fitness success is developing an approach that is going to give us LASTING RESULTS!
Anyone can get quick results and then lose them again.
But the goal is to get results and keep them!
Results, Review, Rinse & Repeat
Now that we are actioning the plan and getting some results.
The final stage of creating a bullet-proof plan is to periodically Review the plan.
Although we don’t want to make drastic changes too soon.
We do need to take time to review our plan and make any necessary tweaks so we can continue to be consistent and make progress.
Ask yourself:
Have you been consistent with your daily habits?
Are you seeing any improvements in your health, your physique, your fitness and your lifestyle?
Is there anywhere you haven’t been able to stay consistent?
Are there any opportunities you can see to improve?
Will any change you’re going to make affect your consistency?
Our lives can change drastically throughout the course of a year or even a month.
So scheduling time to review your Health & Fitness is very important to ensuring that our plan still fits with our lifestyle.
Through some reflection … or a conversation with your coach.
You may set some new goals and make a few tweaks to your daily habits.
Then it’s time to get back into action and be consistent until you next need to review.
We do this in almost any area of our lives were we are trying to achieve!
Think back to school…
We would have an assessment.
Check our results.
Sit with a tutor and come up with a revision plan.
Then we’d go and do our homework each day, week in and week out.
Then we’d re-test, rinse and repeat.
It’s exactly the same with our Health & Fitness.
In Summary
With a bullet-proof plan, you can be part of the 9% of people who reach their resolution.
The steps I’ve covered today are to:
- Start with a vision so your future Health & Fitness can become part of your identity.
- Set a Results-based goal to monitor your progress.
- Create well thought out Process-based goals that will get you there!
Take Action
Review how things are going, make any needed changes, then keep going!
This planning process does of course require some investment of your time and energy.
But being fitter and healthier is worth it…
Just imagine how incredible it will feel this time next year when you are feeling more confident in how you look, you have more energy, you’re sleeping better and you’re joints don’t hurt as much!
… Your work-life has improved. Your Home-life has improved. Your Mental-Health, relationships and stress management have all improved.
If we could put all of that into a pill… it’d be worth millions!
But for NO COST AT ALL you can grab a pen and some paper and get to work on your plan.
If you need any help, you can reach out to me via my email coach@fitness-studio46.co.uk and I’ll be happy to get you going in the right direction.
Yours in coaching,
Harry