New Year’s Day is quickly approaching us which means a lot of people are thinking about what goals they want to set in the New Year. Fitness is one of the most common New Year’s resolutions because during the holidays, people often eat a lot more sugar than they normally would, which often leads to gaining weight. I think that fitness is a great New Resolution because you can always improve your physical health even if you consider yourself an active person. Sadly, most fitness resolutions will fail by February because people don’t know what a realistic fitness goal is and set goals that are impossible to achieve. I have been exercising consistently since I graduated high school, which was over ten years and the one thing I have learned about fitness is that it’s hard to improve your physical health and you can’t expect overnight results, but it is so worth it. How do you make fitness goals that you won’t give up on? In this post, I am going to talk about how you can make a realistic fitness goal that is possible to achieve with hard work.
Decide what you want to improve on- When it comes to setting fitness goals, I think the mistake a lot of people make is that they don’t really think about what it is they want to achieve and pick something that sounds good. If you want to set yourself up for success, it’s really important that you figure out what it is you want to improve on. Do you want to become more flexible or would you rather do something at a slightly higher intensity and improve your cardiovascular health? When people set fitness goals a lot of the time, they will say something along the lines of “I want to get toned.” That is great, but it’s extremely vague because from hearing that goal I don’t know what body part you are unhappy with and want to improve on. It is so important to know what your goals are because once you figure that out, then you can decide what types of exercises you need to be doing to reach that goal. This year, I have decided I am going to focus more on improving my cardiovascular health than strength training. I bought myself a Fitbit to monitor my heart rate so I know how hard I am pushing myself during my walks. Clearly defined goals are so important because if you don’t know what you are working towards it’s easy to get discouraged and give up.
Set a goal you actually want to work toward– If you want to stay on track and reach your fitness goals it is so important that you set a goal you want to achieve. The mistake I see a lot of people make when they make a fitness goal is that they set a goal they could care less if they reach or not. Do you even want to lift weights and improve your strength or are you doing that because your friend said you need to? I think it is so important to make a fitness goal that you actually want to achieve because if your goal bores you to tears it is likely you won’t stick with it for very long. Don’t fall into the trap of doing a workout because it burns the most calories and pick something that you actually want to work toward. I started incorporating a little bit more walking, but I am not doing anything super intense because I hate cardio and know that if I force myself to do a horrible workout that it will make me hate even more.
Have a strong why– Some people love to exercise and can easily motivate themselves to exercise but not everyone enjoys it and sometimes you just have to get through it. People sometimes believe that if you consistently do an exercise for a long period of time you will fall in love with it, but I don’t necessarily agree with that because sometimes you don’t fall in love with your workout and I know I haven’t learned to love walking even though I do it every day and just do it because I know it benefits my health. If you struggle to motivate yourself to exercise, I think it is so important to have a strong why and put it somewhere where you will see it every day because on hard days it will remind you why you started. Make sure you have a strong why and be specific with your goals because if it’s too vague and you say something along the lines of “I want to get abs” it’s easy to lose sight of your goal because it doesn’t tell you why you want to do that. Personally, I don’t like to create goals out of vanity because exercise is not all about looks and should be a celebration of what your body can do not a punishment for the brownie you ate. Never forget your why because it’s easy to lose motivation when you lose sight of that.
Is your goal realistic?-In the New Year, a lot of people have these huge fitness goals that are impossible to achieve because some people do not know what a realistic fitness goal is. If you are new to fitness, I want you to ask yourself “Will I be able to get even close to reaching my fitness goals by the end of the year?” If the answer is no, then it’s not a good goal because fitness goals should be reachable with consistency. If you want to start lifting weights and currently can only lift five pounds, it’s probably not a good idea to make your lifting goal to lift thirty pounds because that is too big of a jump to do in one year and would require intense training schedule to be reachable by the end of the year. Be realistic with your goals because having huge goals that you would need to have a vigorous training schedule to achieve is not smart and sets you up for failure. It takes time to improve your fitness and you are not going to reach your goals faster by lifting weights that are too heavy and all that is going to do is get you injured.
Start small- When you walk into the gym for the first time sometimes it can feel intimidating because you may not know how to use the equipment and come across people that are much more fit than you People sometimes can fall into the trap of thinking they need to be lifting the heaviest weight at the gym and create these huge fitness goals to impress their friends. I think it is important to constantly challenge yourself in your workouts, but you don’t have to be doing something super impressive because it’s smarter to start small. When I started doing walking workouts, I was not able to walk very much because I had not built up my endurance yet and still am walking under ten minutes at a time. I would never make my fitness resolution to walk an hour without stopping because there is no way that will happen in a year or ever and if I were to try to do that it would likely lead to over-training and burnout. Start small because it’s better to set a goal that is too easy and have to increase it than to pick something that is too hard and risk injuring yourself. Everyone starts somewhere and it is okay to have small goals because over time you will be able to do more.
Hire a personal trainer– As a disabled person, I will never hire a personal trainer because I can’t afford one and even if I could it would be difficult to find someone that truly understood my limitations. If you don’t have the same limitations, as I do and can afford a personal trainer, I think it could be a good option for you. A personal trainer can be expensive, but you can learn so much when you work with an expert because they can teach you what exercises you need to be doing to reach your specific goals to get results.
Fitness is a great New Year’s Resolution, but unfortunately, it’s the one goal people will give up first because it’s hard to improve your fitness level, and people want overnight results. Be patient and do not give up when it gets hard because it doesn’t happen overnight, and you’ll never reach your fitness goals if you always quit. If your fitness goal feels impossible to achieve, you shouldn’t take that as a sign to quit, but maybe try setting a smaller goal. A personal trainer can be a great option for people who can afford it and want to start exercising but have no idea where to start, because a trainer can help you figure out what your true limits are and push you past them. Make a clear plan for yourself because doing a bunch of random workouts every single day does not always give you the best results, and you need a reputable program. Write down what your goals are and what steps you need to take to reach those goals, because saying you want to lose weight without a plan isn’t super helpful. How do you set fitness goals that can be reached in a Year? If you liked this post, please leave a comment below and share it with your friends.
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