Fitness: Six Ways to Improve Your New Year’s Exercise Resolutions

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Promise to exercise more ranks first on more lists than any other New Years resolution With losing weight and eating healthier you are not far behind. Yet despite the best of intentions, about 80 percent of all January resolutions are abandoned by the end of February.

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Does that mean that setting annual health and fitness goals is useless exercise? Absolutely not. The problem is often not the lack of follow-through, but the resolution itself.

To help you make the perfect decisions to exercise more in 2022, here are six tips designed not just to get you moving, but to keep you moving all year long.

Identify barriers and opportunities.

There is more than one way to achieve a goal, so it is important to understand what works and what doesn’t. Too often we set goals without considering not only the personal barriers that hinder progress, but also the factors that influence success.

Ignoring the importance of time constraints, lack of motivation, unsupportive family members, financial constraints, and transportation issues is shortsighted. On the other hand, it is equally important to take into account all the factors related to success, such as access to a fitness program in the workplace, the support of a training partner, a flexible work schedule and past experiences. The more your purposes match your lifestyle, the better the chances of achieving your goals.

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Set specific and measurable goals

Instead of deciding to exercise more, set a goal of increasing your weekly exercise minutes by 10 percent. Even better, promise to increase the number of weekly workouts that exceed 30 minutes by 10 percent. Or go one step further and promise to increase the number of weekly strength training workouts that exceed 30 minutes by 10 percent. The more specific and measurable the goal, the easier it is to stay on track and monitor effectiveness.

Another benefit of measuring and monitoring the tasks at hand is being able to recognize and celebrate small victories, which can mean a lot when the end goal seems a long way off.

Focus on the process and performance, not just the result

Fitness resolutions tend to fall into one of three camps: outcome goals, performance goals, or process goals. Losing 25 pounds is an outcome goal, focusing solely on one specific result. Performance goals focus on improving your personal best, such as running 5km faster, lifting a heavier weight, or learning to butterfly. A process goal focuses on what you need to do to achieve something, such as lifting weights three times a week to improve strength, committing to a 30-minute speed workout a week, or learning all four competitive styles.

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Action-oriented resolutions designed to focus on self-improvement rather than self-actualization tend to be more successful. So applaud the process, not just the result.

Stretch but don’t overextend

The best resolutions are goals that motivate you to dig deep, but not so much that you doubt your ability to achieve them. Several studies of overly ambitious exercise and fitness goals have observed a short-term increase in physical activity or performance followed by a sharp decrease in minutes of exercise. This inability to maintain positive momentum over the long term slowly erodes confidence, reducing the likelihood of maintaining commitment and success. So while an especially big goal looks good on paper, it can be a real motivational killer.

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Finding that sweet spot between too easy and too difficult can be challenging. But with past successes in mind, try to make the goal attractive enough that you can’t wait to get started, but not so difficult that you wonder about your ability to succeed.

Set short and long term goals

If you can’t resist setting an ambitious result or performance goal, consider creating a succession of incremental and achievable short-term goals to help you move forward. Like any other goal, short-term goals must be specific and measurable, establishing a clear path to ultimate achievement. Think of them as a series of strategies designed to facilitate many small wins on the way to a bigger profit.

That said, even short-term goals should offer a big enough challenge to start that thrill of excitement associated with taking on a new task. Maintaining momentum toward a long-term goal goes a long way to discouraging the pushback synonymous with New Year’s resolutions.

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Check in

Set up default checkpoints along the way to see where you are in relation to your goal. Use them to validate your progress and see if the end goal is within reach. It might be helpful to share them with a friend or family member and discuss some of the challenges that lie ahead.

It is also a good time to be honest about your ability to achieve those lofty goals, adjusting as you see fit. There’s no shame in realigning your goals based on your actual performance. Flexibility is the hallmark of good goal setting, allowing for a better match between the athlete and what they are striving to achieve.