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Setting Goals & Remaining Motivated
January 04, 2021
Setting Goals & Remaining Motivated
Every year in January marks the start of a mass push towards fitness and I think 2021 might actually be even more so, with most of us not moving as much as we’d like in 2020 and spending most of the year drinking wine, eating chocolate and basically just sitting.
Every year we see the same pattern and most of us actually joke about it too. We go hard in Jan and by the 3rd week it all gets a bit much and we go off the rails. Some people have probably tried that approach a few years on the bounce and still no good.
As always there will be exceptions but for the most part the reason we see this trend year after year is because of the over reliance on motivation. If we create a plan for the most motivated version of ourselves we will fail because as soon as the motivation goes the efforts go too.
So the solution is to create a plan that works for the unmotivated version of ourselves so that we don’t need to rely on feeling motivated. And what I mean by that is start smaller with your planning.
So if you currently do 1 session a week, walk 5000 steps a day on average and you’re not sure about how you’re eating you have 2 options:
Extreme:
Trying 5 times per week
Walk 12,000 steps a day
Only eat 1 meal a day
Sensible:
Walk 6000 steps per day
Train 3 times a week
Track your food
The more sensible approach is the one that will work because not only is it easier to follow, because you don’t need to be particularly motivated to achieve those small changes it also allows a bit of room for growth.
As we start seeing results we can then take advantage of the extra motivation that comes and take another small step forward. We can m maybe increase our steps to 7/8000 a day, add a workout in every week or maybe even push our nutrition by eating less processed foods or increasing protein intake.
This system is one that works for so many reason not least because it keeps you moving in the right direction by creating a series of small but consistent wins.
So as tempting as it is to go BIG in January, please stick to the things you are 100% confident you can achieve and build on that as the weeks go.
If you’re not sure where to start, we will be running a little walking challenge to help get more people active in January so keep your eyes peeled for that.
Every year we see the same pattern and most of us actually joke about it too. We go hard in Jan and by the 3rd week it all gets a bit much and we go off the rails. Some people have probably tried that approach a few years on the bounce and still no good.
As always there will be exceptions but for the most part the reason we see this trend year after year is because of the over reliance on motivation. If we create a plan for the most motivated version of ourselves we will fail because as soon as the motivation goes the efforts go too.
So the solution is to create a plan that works for the unmotivated version of ourselves so that we don’t need to rely on feeling motivated. And what I mean by that is start smaller with your planning.
So if you currently do 1 session a week, walk 5000 steps a day on average and you’re not sure about how you’re eating you have 2 options:
Extreme:
Trying 5 times per week
Walk 12,000 steps a day
Only eat 1 meal a day
Sensible:
Walk 6000 steps per day
Train 3 times a week
Track your food
The more sensible approach is the one that will work because not only is it easier to follow, because you don’t need to be particularly motivated to achieve those small changes it also allows a bit of room for growth.
As we start seeing results we can then take advantage of the extra motivation that comes and take another small step forward. We can m maybe increase our steps to 7/8000 a day, add a workout in every week or maybe even push our nutrition by eating less processed foods or increasing protein intake.
This system is one that works for so many reason not least because it keeps you moving in the right direction by creating a series of small but consistent wins.
So as tempting as it is to go BIG in January, please stick to the things you are 100% confident you can achieve and build on that as the weeks go.
If you’re not sure where to start, we will be running a little walking challenge to help get more people active in January so keep your eyes peeled for that.