I’m sure it won’t surprise you to hear that a high proportion of New Year’s Resolutions fall to the wayside by the time February rolls around.
For our patients, this comes in the form of gym memberships being cancelled, running plans falling away or the tennis racquet being put back in the cupboard until the next Australian Open.
Change is hard. It is easy to be critical of yourself when you aren’t able to stick to a new fitness goal without any hiccups along the way.
In our heads, our progress will look like this:
In reality, it will almost ALWAYS look something like this:
Why is this? Why is it so hard to change.
Here are the most common reasons that we see:
You ask too much of yourself, too soon. For example, you want to get into running. You commit to running 5 days a week, with each run tallying 3-4km. This may not seem like much (you might have friends who run 10km every day!) but relative to where you have come from, it is a massive change. Practical tip: Set the bar low. Pick a target you can almost definitely achieve, eg run 2km, 2x per week. This will help build your confidence, establish the routine, and allow you to progress faster.
Your motivation for change is not intrinsic. You might be motivated by fitting into smaller jeans, impressing your friends or partner, or sticking to a plan you saw on Instagram. For change to be long term, our motivation for it needs to be intrinsic, e.g. because it makes you happy, gives you satisfaction or helps you grow.
Practical tip: Pick a fitness goal that you are intrinsically motivated by; what would you choose to do once you take out money / expectations / social influences? Follow your heart, and your fitness will follow!
You underestimate how hard old habits are to break, and how hard new ones are to create. Let’s take our earlier example of running 5 days a week, with each run tallying 3-4km. Let’s say you want to do this on weekday mornings before work. Great. Did you take into account your current habit of snoozing 3 alarms and allowing yourself 10 minutes before you need to leave for work? Which you have done for the past 15 years? To create new habits, we often have to break an old one first.
Practical tip: Identify the barriers to change before you get started. Develop an action plan to overcome them. For example, putting your phone on the other side of the room so that you have to get up to turn it off.
In summary, don’t be hard on yourself if you’re struggling to stick to your new fitness goals. Reflect on if any of the statements above are true to you. Talking this through and developing an action plan with one of our physios can also help keep you accountable to someone else, and get you back on track.
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