New Year is a time of great pleasure and celebration. We often spend it with our loved ones and families. This is a unique time of the year.

This is also the time people make pledges and goals on what they want to commit the new year too — New year resolution.


WHY YOU SHOULD HAVE A NEW YEAR FITNESS RESOLUTION
Since it’s a new year and you’re making new year resolutions, this is the best time to write down a new year fitness resolution. You can use the whole year as a scale to determine your progress.

Over the course of 365 days, what are you able to achieve. You can break this down to months and weeks and keep a record.

Also, this will help you in future goal setting. It’s also a very good habit to develop as it will motivate you to set out and accomplish other tasks.

As you may know, health is wealth. It is only when you are healthy you can accomplish your goals. This should be the core where you surround other goals around.

WHY PEOPLE BREAK THEIR NEW YEAR RESOLUTION
A lot of people break their resolutions in a few weeks into the new year. According to U.S. News, approximately 80% of resolutions fail by the second week of February. That’s unbelievably high. But why do people break their new year resolutions so early?

It seems the answer lies in the resolution itself. A lot of people make unrealistic resolutions. For example, say you weigh 120kgs/265pounds and you want to lose 70kgs/154pounds by the end of the year. This is a very difficult and almost unrealistic goal to achieve in that time frame.

Poor health is another reason why most people can’t achieve their goals. If you’re healthy, it almost impossible to achieve anything.

Another one is lack of focus and dedication. Accomplishing a goal requires focus and dedication.

It seems most people aren’t just dedicated enough to achieve their goals.

There are so many other reasons why people can’t achieve their goals. These reasons are subjective and you have to answer this for yourself.

But remember, no excuses are genuine.

“Excuses are tools of the incompetent, used to build bridges to nowhere and monuments of nothingness” — Barack Obama.

HOW TO ACHIEVE YOUR NEW YEAR FITNESS RESOLUTION
Keep it simple[color=#000099][/color]
When you make your new year fitness resolution, keep it simple. Don’t make resolutions that are overboard or impossible to achieve.

You may be tempted to make big resolutions — know that the majority of these big goals are doomed for failure.

Making a resolution simple also keeps the brain at ease and makes it fun.

It’s okay to carry your goal over to the next year if its impossible to achieve in a single year – so far progress is made. Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Break it down
Making you’re a new year fitness resolution simply isn’t enough. It’s necessary to break them down. It’s easier to say “I want to do 20 push-ups in a day” than it is to say “I want to do 140 push-ups in a week”. 140 is a big number compared to 20.

Furthermore, this discourages your mind as it sees the process to be tedious – making you unmotivated to even do any push-ups. It is also easier to say you want to drink a glass of water every morning than it’s to say you want to drink a glass of water often.


. This helps you to break your them down into small achievable pieces.

Make it as realistic as possible
Your new year fitness resolution must be realistic. If you have a 9-to-5 job and say you want to go to the gym 5 times a week – that’s possible but a difficult goal to achieve.

A more realistic goal will be to wake up every morning and do 20 push-ups or whatever exercise you want to do.

When setting realistic goals, put into consideration your environment, work, studies, finances and other obligations.

Believe in it
You have to believe in your goal that you have set and most importantly you have to believe that you can achieve them. No dream is impossible with the right factors in place –finance, willpower etc and if you do the right thing.

Keep believing and you will overcome any obstacle that comes your way.

Break bad habits
What bad habits are preventing you from achieving your goal? Is it eating at night? Eating junk food? Drinking too much?

Whatever it is, you must cut it off if you want to achieve your goal. Bad habits are stumbling blocks that prevent you from achieving goals.

In the extreme cases of addictions, you must learn how to break them.

Make exceptions
In life, not are rules are static – there are exceptions to some. Your fitness goals should be flexible. Instead of making excuses, make exceptions.

Exceptions are good because it tells your mind you are still committed to your goal while in this situation it’s not possible to follow the plan.

Exceptions are situational while excuses are unexpected. People make excuses to defend their inability to do what they are supposed to do –

For example, saying you won’t eat junk food except on Wednesdays because you work the whole day. This is justifiable because there is no way you can cook on Wednesdays because you are busy throughout.

Work, work, work
Having a resolution isn’t enough. You have to work hard towards achieving your goal.

In fact, it’s better not to have a resolution and achieve something worthwhile than to have one and not achieve anything.

In addition, your new year fitness resolution must be your guide, inspiration and motivation that will lead you to achieve your fitness goals.

Examples of new year fitness resolutions
Saying I will:

Do no less than 10 push-ups at least four times per week.
Do (according to your workout plan) 2 sets of 10 bicep curls every Monday etc.
Go jogging every weekend for 30 minutes.
Won’t eat junk food except on Mondays because I work the whole day.
Will drink a glass of water in the morning immediately after waking up.
In conclusion, these are just examples that have been broken down, simple and realistic. You should have a bigger picture in mind.

The bigger picture will be what you want to achieve by the end of the year.

For example, you want to lose 100 pounds/45kgs by the end of the year.

Lastly, track your goals. Are you getting results? If yes that’s great. If not, in what areas can you improve? what can you change?

These are questions you have to answer along the way of reaching your goals. At the end of the year, check your result. Did you meet your goals? This will help in future goal setting.

To a year full hopeful of great expectations and accomplishments, Happy New Year!!!

For more articles on fitness and health, visit www.abcstrength.com