The secret to keeping your New Year’s resolutions

Setting resolutions that are too ambitious

Come the first of January we wake up and make ambitious goals: I will never eat chocolate again or I will get up at 5.30am and do a walk/run before work every day. The reality is most people will set the bar too high too soon and ultimately fail and drop off it completely.

Set SMART goals

A SMART goal if you are not familiar with this means it is:

S: Specific

M: Measurable

A: Attainable

R: Realistic

T: Time based

If you follow this guide you will have more direction in your goals and find them easier to stick to and ultimately achieve.

Aim to have both short and long term goals - most New Year’s resolutions are long term goals, and because of a lack of direction and planning towards them (as with short term goals) they usually don’t last long.

For example instead of I will never eat chocolate again, consider For the remainder of this monthy I will only eat 1x 50gram chocolate bar per week. Then at the end of the month you can easily assess whether you have achieved this or not and then reset your goals.

If you didn’t quite manage it then maybe it wasn’t realistic just yet and you need to be more lenient to begin with. If you achieved it then great work! Now you can re-write your goal and progress towards your next step.

Reward yourself when you achieve your goals

Take yourself to the movies, cricket, shopping or whatever will help motivate you to stay on track!  If you feel you need some help setting a plan up for yourself with your healthy eating, exercise or living habits then your Motion Health physio will be able to help guide you.