Here it is, the moment we’ve been anticipating for weeks. the NEW YEAR!
We get all amped thinking about how BAD we were in 2019 and how we FINALLY get a chance to reinvent ourselves in 2020. We’ve eaten all the food and drank all the booze, and now we can settle in to thinking about how we want to change this New Year.
NEW YEAR, NEW YOU. It’s so exciting yet so daunting. The thought of a personal transformation feels so refreshing and gets us curious about what we really REALLY want.
Do we vow to stop eating sugar? Swear we will lose 15 pounds so we can look sexy in skinny jeans? Set out to get flat abs for the first time ever? Or determine that we will make $100k?
When the first of the year rolls around we are feeling motivated and ready to SLAY. We’ve packed our workout bags, made a healthy lunch (sugar free), and downloaded a podcast about financial abundance. All is on the up and up.
After a few weeks or so (if we make it that far) of goal slaying, we find life pulling us in a billion directions and are more likely to be telling ourselves things like:
“I don’t have any time to workout!”
“My day was crazy, I earned this cookie”
“I know I’m supposed to be saving, but these shoes are SO CUTE!”
Each time we tell ourselves these things, our goals turn a little more transparent…until we can no longer see them in front of us at all. And just like that, POOF, our New Year’s goals are gone. Maybe next year, things will be different.
Why is it that we can never seem to reach our New Year’s goals? Is life out to get us or are we just lazy?
NONE OF THE ABOVE!
Here are 3 common reasons why our New Year’s resolutions don’t stick:
They Lack Specificity
Don’t get me wrong, it’s good to shoot for the stars; but sometimes when we set goals without anything clear to grab on to, we often get discouraged. We want to lose weight, but we don’t know how many pounds or in what timeframe we’d like to lose the weight by. We want to make a bunch of money, but HOW MUCH do we want to make and HOW are we going to make it!? Without specificity, our goals are a mere illusion. We set them, but don’t have any clue how to achieve them and therefore lose hope. Goal specificity shapes motivation.
There Is No Accountability
SO MANY New Year’s resolutions are weight-based. We want to lose X pounds so that we can fit into skinny jeans or look good for the summer time. If you truly have some extra pounds to shed, then this is a fantastic goal. However, most of us with weight loss aspirations don’t take into account how FREAKIN HARD it is to lose weight without a solid support system from a peer or trained professional. Choosing an accountability partner or coach to hold you to your goals and lift you up when you are struggling is a total GAME CHANGER when it comes to losing weight.
There Are No Measurable Elements
Once we’ve set a goal for ourselves, we need to be able to measure our success. So say we want to lose weight this year and we’ve even specified that we want to lose 10 pounds in 10 weeks. HURRAY! But we are not quite done yet. Without defining measurable elements to how we will track our progress, it can be hard to reach the goal. In order to make our goal measurable in this scenario, we could weigh ourselves each week on the scale OR log our calories in MyFitnessPal to make sure we are at a 300 to 500 calorie deficit each day to lose about a pound per week.
Imagine a world where we all made resolutions and actually attained them!? Now we know this is entirely possible if we make sure they are: SPECIFIC, MEASURABLE, and we have an ACCOUNTABILITY buddy!
Cheers to SLAYING this year’s resolutions!!
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