Don’t Quit Now: How to keep your New Year’s resolutions going strong
Remember those New Year’s resolutions you made? Of course you do. You were going to get in shape, lose X number of pounds, run a 5K, or some other fitness or nutrition goal.
How are you doing on that?
The odds are you’re not quite where you want to be. In fact, research conducted by Strava, a social network for athletes, showed that most fitness resolutions don’t make it past January 12 – or “Quitter’s Day.” Other studies have shown that only 58% of all resolutions survive the first month.1
While not all of us fall into these “quitter” categories, it’s pretty likely that with March having just crept up on us, those fitness resolutions may not be broken but the motivation might be faltering a bit.
Try these strategies and you may be able to push the odds back in your favor.
Give Yourself Some Accountability
Simply throwing in the towel on your resolution becomes much more difficult when you have someone to answer to.
Put a solid support system in place and maintain it. A fitness or Wellness Coach, friends, and family are great places to start, but online communities are a valuable resource as well. Consider joining (or re-joining for some of us) a challenge group. The mutual support can do wonders for your motivation as you inspire each other with your successes.
Visibility Is Key
How often are you checking on your progress? If your goal is to lose weight, are you keeping up your weigh-ins? If you have an achievement goal, are you monitoring your progress toward important milestones?
Check in on your tools for monitoring your fitness as regularly as possible. This keeps the resolutions in the forefront of your mind, making it harder to let it fade into obscurity. Don’t be afraid to write those goals on the bathroom mirror or tape them up at your desk. Keep your goals visible and you’ll keep them alive.
Reward Yourself
No, this does not mean you can eat an entire birthday cake in one sitting just because you’ve lost 15 pounds.
Plan little rewards for yourself at each milestone and acknowledge your successes. After a certain amount of weight lost, pick up a new pair of jeans that you can now fit into. Bigger achievements can bring bigger rewards. Made it to the “30 pounds lost” milestone? Celebrate with a night out to the movies or an evening on the town!
Give yourself multiple goals to work toward so it’s not such a huge undertaking.
Fish for Compliments (No, Seriously)
Think of this like combining the methods of rewards and visibility.
You have worked really hard to get this far in your resolution and you’ve earned the right to brag just a little bit. Don’t be afraid to post that gym selfie or the picture of your new, smaller-sized #OOTD. The encouragement from your friends in the comments section could be the self-esteem boost you need to push on through the time when most people lose steam. Plus, if your friends see your wins, they’re more likely to check in on you in the future. You don’t want to let them down!
1Women’s Health and Nutrition Guide for Every Age – Susan Bowerman, M.S., R.D., CSSD, CSOWM, FAND – Sr. Director, Worldwide Nutrition Education and Training