New Year's Resolution

The dreaded New Year's Resolutions! Yup, the time has come again to find something you want to change and then change it for 2 months and give up. Sound familiar? Yeah, I hear that a lot as a fitness professional. Everrryyybody starts out with good intentions and then they lose it. Why? They ask me. Sometimes its because people pick a goal that is too unrealistic for that time in their life, or they lose motivation, or they become really busy and just lose it. The thing is those things are going to happen (except the unrealistic goals, you can fix that to work for you). You will lose motivation, you will become really busy and get out of the swing of things; but you can always come back and that is the key to this. People think they need to be perfect with their regiment every day all the time. In reality, life gets in the way and we have to adapt. If you are able to say okay, I lost my way for a little while but I am going to pick back up where I left off, then you will be able to keep on a steadier path to your success. Give yourself some grace, forgive yourself. Just because you fell off doesnt mean you have to quit completely!

Now lets talk about Goals a little bit. I capitalize it because it is very important to have goals. How can you get anywhere if you dont know where you are going?! Lots of times people dont know how to set goals the right way, so lets talk about SMART goals. This is something every college kid learns about in their classes no matter what major they are pursuing. I think we talked about these 100 times in my 4 years. Every year in some other class the teacher would say, "Have you hear of SMART goals before?" Duhhh. So if you have heard of them before I am sorry! Here's a refresher :) S-Specific M-Measurable A-Attainable R-Realistic T-Timely. This is what SMART stands for. First the S: make sure it is a specific goal. Dont just come into the new year saying, "I want to lose weight!" That is not specific enough. Think about what is attainable (letter A) and realistic (letter R) and set your specific goal. For example: "I want to lose 10 pounds in 3 months by running, lifting weights, and walking." This hits every letter on that SMART goal. It is specific with amount of time you allow yourself and how many pounds you want to lose and how you are going to do it, it is realistic because you can definitely lose 10 pounds in 3 months and it is timely because you say when you want to do it by. It is also measurable because it deals with numbers. You can actually count the months and get on a scale and see the poundage difference. Lets do another one, "I want to get closer to God this year." This is a great goal, but not SMART. Think about how you would make this SMARTer.

Got it? Good, here we go. A SMARTer way to say this would be, "I want to grow in my relationship with God withing the next year by joining a small group at church, digging into my bible once a day for 10 min, and taking 5 min in the morning to pray." It is specific, measurable in some way by the time, attainable because everyone can take 15 min a day to dig in deeper and timely because you say within the year.

These are just a couple of popular examples people want at the beginning of any new year. You might have a very specific goal which is great! If you dont, edit it to become a SMARTer goal, and remember that you are not perfect, but Jesus was already for you. So give yourself some grace when you mess up and try again. He gives you grace so you should too.

God Bless.