Although I’d like to believe that my entire following listens to the drivel that spills out of my cake hole on the regular, I recognise that temptation is still strong to join the “this year, my life changes” crowd. And I reckon about 50% of you will still be lining up to take on the turn of the Gregorian calendar as some sort of life-changing experience.
Now look, it’s not the way I’d do it. But I’m not here to throw you out on the street because you’re not perfect. So instead, if you’re here and you’re wanting to make a New Year’s Resolution and actually achieve it, then read on for an absolutely foolproof step-by-step on setting goals and achieving them. Easy! And don’t forget to check out the early episodes of the Do Better podcast for more advice on goalSMASHING and why it’s so important for us all to do when we’re on a quest to do better!
1. Spend time SETTING the goal.
So many people fall at the first hurdle. We all have a tendency to indulge ourselves over Christmas and our knee-jerk reaction is to immediately make an unattainable promise to ourselves, to try and deal with the guilt we’ve laden ourselves with. The majority of people will set some sort of goal based on their health and fitness. But why? And usually, this is a goal they’ve set before and failed to achieve before…but why?! Because they didn’t associate the importance of that goal. WHY do you want to get healthier? WHY do you want to change your body composition? WHY do you want to work out daily? If you don’t ask yourself “why” enough, then you will never achieve your goal because you it will never be important enough for you to prioritise it. So spend some time brain storming WHY you want to achieve it a goal, why it’s important to you, what joy and benefits it can bring to you, how you’ll feel if you achieve it. Perhaps create a mood-board and stick it somewhere visible or write down some key words relating to your goal to evoke emotions when you think about that goal. But think about it long and hard and make sure your goal is something that really lights you up.
2. Visualise the HARD parts of getting to your goal.
If your goal is to run a marathon this year, it’s easy to think about the basics of what this might entail; drinking more water, eating more nutritious foods, getting a good pair of trainers, finding a training plan. It’s easy to go to the gym and get on the treadmill or head out for an early morning run when you get started. But what about when the magic fades a bit, when you need to do your long run at 0430 before work and the school run, but it’s freezing cold, it’s raining, it’s windy? What about when you’re tired after a day at work and you still need to head out to train before dinner and you would rather come home and slump on the sofa in front of the TV? You need to visualise the hardest parts of your goal. You need to firmly imagine yourself, in your head, doing those hard things. Picture yourself lacing up those trainers when it’s windy and rainy outside, putting your coat and head torch on and heading out into the weather. Picture yourself coming home from work, getting changed and heading out when it’s cold and dark outside and everyone else gets to stay in in front of Netflix. Because the easy times are not where people get it wrong. It’s the hard times. You have to prepare yourself for those.
3. Make it achievable.
One guaranteed way to fail, is to bite off way more than you can chew. If you’re currently grazing on chocolate at all hours of the day, you drink ten coffees a day, you never work out and you never drink water, then suddenly telling yourself this is the year you’ll ditch all caffeine and chocolate, go to the gym twice a day and drink 2L of water every day is quite frankly, dumb. It’s too much too soon. You can have an aim that one day in the future, that’s what you’ll do because you know how living on caffeine and sugar makes you feel. But you need to approach this for the long term, in a way that’ll WORK. Have a big dream, have a strong vision of what “future you” looks like, how they behave, how they think. But make sure you approach that vision one step at a time. Why not start by saying “I’ll replace two of my usual coffees with a decaf coffee every day.” And then the following week, perhaps replace two more of those coffees with water. Perhaps the following week two more. And then after that, perhaps start replacing some of those chocolate snacks with fruits or vegetable sticks. And before you know it, you’re hydrated, you’re calmer, your blood sugar is more stable and suddenly you’re in a position to take on a heck of a lot more! Bite size chunks is key.
4. Make a proper PLAN.
This seems obvious. And also vague. So you’ve created a big vision and you know why it’s important to you. You’ve prepared yourself for the hard things you’re going to have to do. But have you actually planned out how you’re going to get from where you are now, to where you want to be at the end of next year…? Twelve months is a long time. But it also flies by in the blink of an eye. How are you going to make sure that 1st January you, makes it to December 31st you? You need a proper plan. You need to sit down, sketch out the year, establish what needs to be done and what all the little milestones are between now and then. Have a plan for the year, each month, each week, each day. Sure, you can’t guarantee that every day will be perfect – in fact, it won’t. But you can make some manageable weekly and monthly goals, thing you can tick off to make sure you’re always taking steps forward, even when life starts life-ing. Check out this episode of the podcast to get some more advice on how to set a great plan for the year ahead.
5. Commit to yourself.
You’ve got a dream. You’ve got a plan. You’re prepared to do the hard work. Now it’s as simple as this: commit. Commit to yourself. Think about what future you would want to thank present you for. The answer will always be, taking action. It doesn’t matter how small that action may be. There will be times when things don’t quite follow the plan, when progress is nowhere near as linear as you’d hoped. But future you wants to be able to thank you for taking action. So in whatever way you can, remind yourself that the tiny actions you take now, dictate the success you have in the future. And it’s the process that is the achievement. It’s making the commitment and the actions and effort to change and improve.
Now the other thing that’s going to help you on this journey, is finding an environment to help you succeed. Where can you find that? The Paladins community! Throughout the year, I’ll be running mini-action challenges focused on taking tiny steps forward to help you on your way to success. There’s plenty of people in there doing the same. You’ll also receive information on early access to my nutrition courses and spaces on my 1-2-1 coaching programmes as they arise. So get stuck in!