New Day's Resolution

Once I got a hold of self-development books, it was full steam ahead. I used to set huge (silly) goals. The problem with those are that you have no clue when you'll get there, and they may be so far out that you can't predict what will happen along the way.

The New Year is looming. It's the time of year when we all try to do that. Regret of the past year makes us want to start fresh. Then we will try to hit our goal "sometime next year." Or worse, if we mess up, we throw out the goal completely, only to repeat the process the next year.

Again, the problem with this approach is that the goal either has a fuzzy deadline or it's so far away (one year) that it doesn't give you any fire to get started now.

What you really want is consistency every day, which is how you get any goal in the first place.

To get there, you need to set New Day's Resolution.

(It's a bit of a cheesy title, but you get the idea.)

Consistency Redefined

A better definition of consistency I recently heard is this:

Just don't give up.

The optimistic planners in us will find a program or challenge, lay out our calendar, fancy spreadsheets, and proclaim to the world about our future adventure on social media.

Then we miss day 3 and we think it's all over.

Missing a day on a streak attempt makes you feel horrible.

I've been there.

But consistency isn't about a streak.

A streak doesn't account for real life (unless your responsibilities are low).

What's more powerful?

The average.

As I write this, I have a physical calendar (yes, those still exist) on my wall. I use it to check off the days that practice guitar.

The rule is this:

Try to aim for 90% of the month.

That gives about 3 days of wiggle room for each month.

I also came back from vacation, so I didn't care about checking it off then or bringing my guitar with us in the car. And that's OK, because I'll bounce right back to where I left off.

That's a much more powerful and relaxed approach than a streak approach.

If anything, a strict streak mindset makes you bounce back in the wrong direction. You figure "Well I messed up my diet today. Might as well binge the rest of the day since I have to start over tomorrow."

I've been both people.

Having wiggle room and lower restrictions accounts for real life.

In a pinch and have to eat out for lunch?

Just pick the best option you can from the menu and move on.

Miss a workout?

Just don't miss the next.

Birthday party coming up?

It's alright because you've been eating well the rest of the week.

Eat the cake.

It's similar to the 800 gram challenge. If you're not familiar, it was created by EC Synkowski and the rules are similar: You can eat whatever you want as long as you eat 800g of fruits and veggies per day. She also has a similar challenge with protein. Eat what you want but eat a certain gram amount of protein per day (based on your current or desired bodyweight). When your food vices are still on the table (pun intended), it starts to lose power over you. That plus you're so full of real food you won't be ravenously hungry for sweets anyway.

So start now. Mess up (as you will). Plan on the mess ups. Then move on with your life and keep it up the next time.

That's the way you win in the real world.

Daily Resolutions

You'll have days when you don't feel like working out.

Most mornings I don't feel like waking up and working out.

But the morning when you need to do the workout is where the resolution comes in, not what you said you'd do back in January.

A year is made up of 365 days. Or you can think of it as 12 months. Or 4 quarters. Or 52 weeks.

What are you going to do with that information?

You're going to narrow down your goals and your deadlines.

You can set as big of a goal as you want on January 1st, but will you remember it on December 31st?

Do you even know what you had for lunch yesterday?

If the answer to that is no, then shrink the timeline down. Yes you want to squat 500lbs for 5 or be 5% bodyfat, but how about squatting 230lbs and losing 2lbs before the month is over?

Big goals come from a series of milestones along the way.

The milestones only happen when you can shut the world out in the moment and put the work in.

This is known as Parkinson's law: work expands (or shrinks) depending on the time you give it.

If you had to draw a house in 10 seconds, you'd probably draw a square with a triangle on top. Maybe you'd add a door and a window. If you had a week, there would be more detail. If I gave you a year, you'd probably take a drawing class online and practice until you got it right.

Your body is different. You can't add 50lbs to your lifts in a week, but you can see what you can do in a month or 8-12 weeks.

Then on a smaller level, you can make sure you hit your weights for the day.

This is where the true power comes in.

Let's put it together.

The New Day's Resolution Plan

Step 1: Set a reasonably big goal

• Yes, I might be contradicting myself, but you need an aim down the road that decides all the milestones along the way. This big goal can be anywhere from 10 years (not ideal) down to 1 year. I think the smaller deadline is better, since you have no clue what will happen in 10. So write down that 1 year goal.

• It can be how you perform or how you look. Ideally you want to set a performance goal (in the gym) because how you look will usually be determined by fat loss and muscle gain. You control those with diet and standards in the gym.

Step 2: Milestones

• Now you need to break down that big year goal into milestones along the way.

• It would be helpful to think in quarter milestones, then monthly milestones, then weekly, the daily.

Step 3: Focus on the Daily

• Once you have all those goals laid out, forget about them, especially the 1 year one, and focus on the day.

• Years are made of quarters, months, weeks and days. If you just put your big goal up on a wall, but lost sight of the day to day, then the size of the big goal may discourage or scare you. Keep it small. One step at a time.

Step 4: Foresee Failure

• This is a big one. The question isn't where to find the perfect program, the question should be "what will I do when xyz bad scenario happens."

• Your major plan should be a rough outline, fully accounting for mess ups along the way. Here are some examples:

  • Getting sick

  • Vacation

  • Bad nights of sleep (from you or a newborn)

  • Work gets crazy

  • Getting bored with the program

• So what will you do in these situations? Sometimes a couple days off are just a way to get more of a physical break. You might be able to pick up where you left off. You might have to back down 10% if it's been a week. No matter what happens, you'll have to figure out how to get back on track. Go ahead and research methods on how to do that up front so you're ready for when it happens.

The moral of the story is this: just don't give up. Remember, that's what we said earlier. You need to figure out a way to break things down so small that your brain can't talk you out of it (small tasks, training in the mornings, reflecting on goals, etc). Then you need to be ready for when things go crazy.

Figure those out and you'll be unstoppable.

New Day, New Me

We see people doing challenges all around us.

"I did xyz for 30 days."

It could be getting 10k steps, taking out alcohol, doing pushups, the list goes on.

But guess what?

We're humans, not robots.

IF (and that's a big IF) you're able to knock out a complete unbroken streak of a challenge like working out, great.

But what if you mess up on day 29 out of 30? Do you lose all of your progress? Do your muscles wither away?

Of course not.

So don't think it has to be an all or nothing endeavor.

You're in this for the rest of your life, not the next 30-90 days.

People make their resolutions on January first.

You need to remind yourself of your resolution every morning.

It will be hard, and you'll want to quit a lot, but it's more powerful because you're resolving each day, not months ago.

So get out there and start now.

If you can't start now, start tomorrow.

Just start.

Thanks for reading!

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