Probably the most common dialogue heard around the new year is all the halfwitted resolution plans.
In the health and fitness industry, gyms, trainers, coaches, marketers, conniving sales-artists and “guru’s” alike swarm these resolutioners like they’re hoarding cattle.
We often hear these pseudo-resolutions, but what do we not often hear of?
Their successes.
There are numerous folks who improve every year, compounding their progress, but I’m talking about the ones who annually, fail to achieve what they think they want to achieve.
How can we go about making your health, nutrition, training, physique, lifestyle, habitual, performance, or any goals you have for yourself – more attainable?
Vision. Education. Habits. Reverse Engineering.
Vision:
What is it you truly want?
Do you really want to look like a Men’s Health, or a Instagram fit model? Is it abs you want, or arms? Both? Strength, or physique? Performance goals maybe, like running a marathon?
Run through these questions with yourself, and really do some digging into what you’re looking to achieve.
The plan to get you to where you aim to go, should take you straight there. We want to take the highway to get across the state, not backroads.
Education:
Okay, you’ve created a vision with your future-self in mind. Now, educate yourself on those goals.
You want to be lean, healthy, and overall a model of health and fitness. Awesome! Now, who do you get your inspiration from? Subscribe to their channels, read their blogs, read their newsletters, look for their collaborators in the field.
Read about kettlebells, omega-3’s, and meditation. Reach out to a coach, or educator who’s specialty is in topics you’re setting your sights on.
I’m not saying to enroll in a doctoral program on bio-mechanical anatomy, just commit to learning more. That can be done with your own reading, or having a professional expel information to you. Either way, the more familiar you become with the ins and outs of what it takes to be the person you want to be, the vision becomes clearer, the barriers are broken, and it becomes seemingly feasible.
Habits:
Entrench yourself in the lifestyle that someone who has what you aspire to have, has. Adopt those habits, and become a person who does those things.
Who do you look up to? Who do you draw inspiration from? What habits do those people have, that you can employ? I don’t mean for you to draw any comparisons of yourself to those folks, I simply mean to “audit” your own habits, and scour your day for nooks and crannies to nudge in some new, beneficial habits.
How can you create a more consistent schedule for your training?
- Can you pack a gym bag every night, possibly adding that to your nighttime routine, to prepare you for a morning workout? That would save you the barrier of needing to do that once you wake up, when it’s 17,000x less likely.
- Can you dedicate your lunch break to a brief, yet effective training session? Once you’ve completed that routine for a week, it just becomes something you do, something someone who is focused on becoming more fit would do.
- Can you make a conscious effort once you’re home from work to walk straight to your room, change your clothes, and head out the door? Don’t sit down on the couch, don’t check the local pizza joint’s ad, and avoid a mindless social media scroll.
Reverse Engineering:
Reading
“I want to read 20 books this year.”
The average book length is around 200 pages.
4,000 pages to read this year.
1,000 pages per quarter.
333 pages per month.
11 pages per day.
It takes the average reader about 16.7 minutes to read 10 pages.
Dedicate 20 minutes per day to reading, and you’ve achieved your goal. (You can even split it into 2, 10 minute reading sessions daily.)
Fat Loss
“I want to lose 20lbs by next Thanksgiving.”
20lbs, divided by 11 months is just below 2lbs a month.
2lbs a month, means .5lbs a week.
1lb of fat is roughly 3500 calories, so you’ll need to be in a deficit of around 1750 calories weekly.
A 1750 calorie deficit weekly, will mean you need to be in a 250 calorie deficit daily.
End of Year Outcome
If anything, focus on an end of year outcome. What do you want to attain by the time the ball descends into 2021? Write it out, journal it, think about it.
“By the end of 2020 I will ___________.”
You can use that how you’d like. It can be an occupant of your non-conscious mind, or it can be apart of your actions for 365 days.
We all want to attain something. What separates those who end up where they want to be, versus those who end up in the same place, just with another year tacked on?
Happy New Year!
-Coach Cody