Man Running Along Road in Countryside

It’s February and the post-Christmas panic has started to shift. Which also means, those New Year’s Resolutions you set a few weeks ago? Might just be beginning to slip...

And if this sounds like you, you're not alone.

Around 80% of New Year’s Resolutions fail and if yours are in that 80%, then now is the time when it’s most likely to happen.

Resolutions don’t fail for no reason though. Over-indulging at Christmas, combined with time off spent thinking about the year ahead, can often mean we set the bar too high. Either we start changing everything at once, or the changes we make are just too extreme.

Our advice? Ditch your original resolutions and replace them with new, more realistic ones. But first, check out our guide below to make sure you don’t make the same mistakes again.

Here are our top six mistakes that most people make when setting their fitness goals.

STOP MAKING THESE NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS MISTAKES

1 - YOU TRY TO CHANGE EVERYTHING AT ONCE

Woman deadlifting a Mirafit women's Olympic barbell and 20kg plates

It’s natural to get to the end of the year and want to change a lot of things at once. But changing everything at the same time can just end up in failure. It might be that you’ve cut out all carbs, or suddenly stopped all caffeine intake. Combine these sorts of resolutions with a new gym routine, restricted meals and 5am runs and you’ve got a recipe for disaster. Doing all of these resolutions at once will most likely leave you feeling tired, headachy and most of all – hungry!

What to do instead

Make little changes one at a time and then adjust and wait until you’re comfortable with the first change before you move onto the next one.

For example, if your aim is to get stronger, start by doing some more compound lifts at the gym such as deadlifts, bench presses or squats at the Squat Rack.

If you want to cut out caffeine completely, replace one of your coffees with a decaff or herbal tea, and slowly reduce your intake from there.

If the changes you’re making are leaving you hungry or tired, you’re much more likely to give up or reach for the treats. So be prepared to make adjustments along the way until you find a more manageable approach.

2) THE GOALS JUST AREN’T REALISTIC

Person performing a yoga pose

When it comes to planning a new lifestyle, balance is incredibly important. It’s easy to pluck numbers out of the air and decide that we want to fit into a certain size, be a certain weight or have a particular body fat percentage. But, for a start, we’re all different. And that means, we all have different body types, lifestyles and metabolisms.

If reaching your goal means always feeling hungry, an inability to get a good night’s sleep, headaches and a lack of focus at work, then your goals are clearly too extreme.

What to do instead

Rather than choosing a goal that’s going to be incredibly difficult to reach, choose to do just a little better than you’re doing now. For example, your goal could be to shed one pound, or one per cent body fat. Or if you’re looking to get stronger, start by making some small changes to your current training plan. Keep setting yourself new goals that are within close reach and go from there.

3 - YOU’RE TOO STRICT

Man doing a Kettlebell swing with a Mirafit Cast Iron Kettlebell

When setting new fitness goals, it’s important to recognise there’s a difference between being strict and being disciplined. Being disciplined is great because you need that drive to keep going back to the gym and stay on it.

However, when you’re too strict, you can end up overtraining, injuring yourself or just driving yourself down into the ground. So, it’s really important to have rules, but it’s also important to know when to break them.

What to do instead

When you’re coming up with a new training schedule, make sure it’s flexible. Firstly, it’s good to make sure you have several open windows during the week when you can train. That way, you’re not committing yourself to six, 5am starts every week. Secondly, make sure you plan in breaks. If having a relaxed, Friday night in is really important to you, then don’t plan in a weekly, Friday night bootcamp session instead – it won’t last. And thirdly, if you’re not feeling it, don’t keep doing it. Have the freedom to change up your training plan and do something different. Or, if you had a bad night’s sleep and you haven’t got the energy to train, go home, get some rest and start again tomorrow.

4 - YOUR GOALS ARE NOT PROPERLY DEFINED

paper with notebook and a watch

If your new fitness goals are something along the lines of “lose weight” or “get stronger”, then this might be too vague. By not thinking through exactly where you are and where you want to be, you’re not going to have any real focus when you train. And if you don’t know where you want to be in six months' time, it’s impossible to know how to get there!

What to do instead

Goals that are too vague are goals that are not very realistic. So, start by planning in some attainable goals that you can easily achieve over the next few weeks. Stay on track and keep a note of your progress. It’s good to have end goals in mind but just make sure that they are not too extreme (see above).

5 - IT FEELS TOO MUCH LIKE A CHORE

three female friends waiting for an exercise class in the gym

If you’re not enjoying your training, it’s more than likely you won’t keep it up. Some people love strength training, some people love running, for some it’s Yoga. But if you’re someone who doesn’t really like exercising, then there are definitely going to be some types of training that are more suited to you than others.

What to do instead:

Rather than forcing yourself to do something you don’t enjoy, try to look for alternative ways to work out. It's also a good idea to find someone you can train with. That way, even if you’re not exactly loving the exercise, at least you’ve got good conversation, motivation and a little bit of friendly competition to keep you going back.

6 - THERE ARE NO CONSEQUENCES FOR GIVING UP

a healthy woman drinking water after exercising

It can be all too easy to miss a few sessions at the gym. And then, what was a few missed sessions can quite quickly turn into not going at all. If this is an all too easy trap to fall into, then it’s very possible you’ll end up giving up on your fitness goals.

What to do instead

Do whatever you need to make sure that you go. A good way to start is by telling everyone you know what your goals are, so that when your motivation starts to waiver, they will be the push you need to get to the gym. Having a training buddy is also a good way of making sure you both go. And just remind yourself of why you’re going in the first place. It might be that going to the gym means you can have a treat after dinner or a beer on Friday night.

Also, make sure that you reward yourself for going. Set a new PB? Shed another pound? Then plan in something you enjoy as a ‘well done’. It could be anything from cooking your favourite meal to getting that video game you’ve had your eye on.

One of the most important things you need to do... make sure that you're not overtraining!

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Tags: Misc > Lifestyle