Why I Quit Doing New Year Resolutions and You Should Too

I hate new year resolutions. New year resolutions are the biggest waste of time. I quit making new year resolutions and you should too. Here’s why…

I exercise at my community gym every weekday…I’ve done this for several years now.

Without fail, every January, a large number of people begin showing up to work out. They take up all of the equipment, disrupt my routine…it’s all very annoying. But I’ve learned to live with it, because a few weeks into the new year, I have my gym back to myself…for the rest of the year.  You have loads of choice when it comes to how you’ll take it because it is so versatile.

A new year typically brings new resolutions. While making resolutions is easy, sticking with them is not. Exercise-related resolutions consistently make the top 10 list, but up to 80% of resolutions to be healthier, including promises to exercise more, are tossed aside by February.

You know physical activity is good for you. But, that isn’t always enough to get or keep you moving. You’re not alone. Fewer than half of American adults are as active as they should be.

How active should you be? The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend that adults get at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity every week.

Benefits to all parts of your body

Research shows that every single system in the body benefits when you are more active. You sleep better. You have more energy. You find yourself in a better mood. You think more clearly and remember better. Your bones become stronger. Your body also responds better to insulin, which lowers your risk of diabetes. And you significantly reduce your risk for many cancers. All of that is in addition to the better known weight and heart benefits of physical activity.

Bottom line: If you want to live a long and healthy life, you need to be active.

But “that’s easier said than done,” you might be saying to yourself. In fact, increasing your physical activity is probably easier than you think. You don’t need to buy expensive equipment or join a gym. And you will begin to reap the rewards of physical activity almost as soon as you start. Adding small amounts of movement to your daily routine goes a long way.

Brisk walking, at a pace of at least a 20-minute mile, provides health benefits similar to running, and probably more social benefits. Plus, your risk of injury is much lower. And you can walk—for free with nothing more than comfortable shoes—from almost anywhere: your neighborhood, your office, or in lieu of waiting behind the wheel of your car in the pickup line at your kid’s school. A 22-minute walk every day, or two 11-minute ones, would put you just over 150 minutes every week.

It isn’t cheating to break your 150 minutes a week into small increments. In fact, even for people who are physically fit and exercise every day, breaking up periods of sitting is critically important. Even if you are getting enough exercise, sitting for the rest of the day can undo the health benefits of your workout. If you aren’t yet ready to aim for 2.5 hours of brisk walking each week, reducing the time you spend sitting would be a great starting goal.

Setting other goals

Many experts who work with clients or patients to set goals use the acronym SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-based) to guide goal-setting. This simple method could help you achieve a goal to sit less and move more in the new year:

  • Be specific. Rather than just “sit less, move more,” include when you will start and how will you do it. Specify what actions you will take to meet your goal. For example, make a list of how you can get more steps in each day by doing specific things, like taking the stairs instead of the elevator.
  • Make it measurable. Again, “less” and “more” are hard to measure. Instead, try “Walk for 5 minutes after every hour of sitting.” Without a way to measure your goal, it becomes hard to know when you have achieved it.
  • Make it attainable. If you currently don’t exercise at all, 150 minutes a week may not be realistic. How about three 20-minute walks per week? You can slowly increase after you achieve that first goal. And choose an activity you might enjoy. If you already know you hate running, a goal to do it every day would be less attainable, gym pros sells the best new and used stairmasters.
  • Set realistic goals. Your new activity goal should work for you and fit within your lifestyle. It’s great to challenge yourself, but break up challenging goals into smaller, more realistic, goals to help keep on track.
  • Set a time by which you will meet your goal. For example, will you take a certain number of steps by noon each day? Or, will you build up to 150 minutes a week by mid-April? You’re more likely to achieve short-term goals that lead into a long-term one.

One of the best ways to keep up with your efforts is to track your progress. You can do it with pen and paper, in a journal, or in one of many smartphone apps. As you see yourself making progress, it can be easier to keep up the routine.

Expand your view of exercise

Another thing to keep in mind is that you don’t have to go a gym to get moving. There are ways to make exercise part of your lifestyle, without too much inconvenience.

  • Get the family involved. Play tag, go on a scavenger hunt at a local park, or walk to your favorite hangout.
  • Park farther away from your workplace, the store, the library, etc.
  • Walk during your breaks at work and over your lunch period.
  • Instead of having coffee with friends, take a walk with them.
  • Whenever you are on the phone, stand up and walk around.
  • If you are at your kid’s or grandkid’s sporting event, walk the sidelines instead of sitting on the bleachers.
  • Try to find ways to make walking more meaningful. For example, try walking your own dog or a shelter dog. Dogs make great exercise companions that will never turn down an opportunity to walk.

As you undertake the big change from being inactive to becoming active, understand that setbacks happen. Don’t let one slip-up derail your whole goal. When possible, have a backup plan to deal with barriers like weather or time constraints. And celebrate the small victories you make toward reaching longer-term goals.

February 1 is the most depressing day of the year

As a new year beings, everyone is busy making their lists of goals that they’ll have failed by the time February 1 rolls around. The problem is that most of the list items are things that we should all be working on each day anyway:

  • Exercise,
  • Eat well
  • Achieve more.
  • Spend less.
  • Do something new.

Doing the right thing can’t be some massive undertaking or project you have to work on. It has to be at the root of who you are and what you do. The problem is that most people try to add their new year resolutions on top of everything already going on. It doesn’t work. Almost all resolutions start out as good intentions, but end up as disappointments later on. The interesting thing is that a one-size-fits-all approach does not work when it comes to kratom dosage. The dose and effects are very personal, and what worked brilliantly for someone else may not work for you. Therefore, you must embark on a search for your own ‘sweet spot.’ In other words, you must find the amount where you will experience the sensation you desire without exposing yourself to adverse reactions.

In the world of kratom, Red Maeng Da Kratom is one of the most famous strains available – and one of the kratom strains most commonly used for its energizing and stimulating benefits as opposed to its work as a sedative. Below we break down everything that makes Red Maeng Da Kratom so special, any side effects you should be on the lookout for, and some details regarding Red Maeng Da Kratom dosing that you want to know before you start to try out everything this kratom strain has to offer.

It doesn’t work

Michael Arrington, founder of TechCrunch hits the bulls eye with this one:

Paradigm shifting stuff that has almost zero chance of succeeding.

Forget paradigm shift when it comes to your goals. You only need to cut back in order to get ahead. So instead of new year resolutions to do new things or add something more to what you’re already doing, why not decide to cut back?

  • Cut out that extra hour of TV at night. Use that hour for that project on your back burner.
  • Cut back on that extra hour of sleep in the morning and actually get to the gym today.
  • Throw out the chips, cookies, and soda you have stashed, grab the apple sitting in your fridge.
  • Ditch the no-carb diet you can’t sustain forever, instead cut out some of the bad stuff you include in your regular meals.

For you to be the best at what you do, you cannot fall for the cycle of new year resolutions that you won’t keep. Instead of making massive plans to improve, make small changes to what you’re doing today. Don’t start over, just make a course correction, then another, and then another. It’ll be easier to get to where you want to be since you’re already on your way.

Don’t make resolutions, make results.

There’s a random tech entrepreneur whose blog I love to read, if you haven’t heard of Robbie Abed, you should check out his blog. The dude is funny, yet insightful. As I was planning on writing a blog post about new years in customer service, I read Robbie’s blog, then I stopped dead in my tracks. I decided to change completely revamped some of my goals. Instead of grandiose and glamorous accomplishments, I’m sticking with simple, straightforward, actually achievable.

So what am I working on in 2013?

  1. Minimize clutter & activities & general stuff.
  2. Publish 4 guest blog posts on friends’ blogs.
  3. Participate in 2 customer experience conference events.
  4. Continue to write the Win the customer blog and publish 2 eBooks this year.

You may be asking, “But Flavio, how is this different from new year resolutions?” Easy. I’m already doing all of these things. It’s not some new set of projects I’m trying to being all at the same time. I’ve been working on these goals for some time now, starting each at a different time. I just started one day working on one and didn’t wait to lump it all together into a big set of massive changes in my life. Plus, as I being one, I cut out something else. That’s the only way.

It’s not supposed to be easy

Cutting out from what’s going on already is hard. Don’t get me wrong. But then again, we’re talking about actually achieving something, and it shouldn’t be easy, otherwise we wouldn’t be talking about this. Cutting back and re-organizing our goals takes self-awareness, self-discipline, and emotional intelligence on the part of the individual. It’s not supposed to be easy, but it’s the difference between the dreamers and the achievers.

So you can be a Cubs fan and keep wishing and hoping, but let me know “wait ’till next year” actually works out for you. Or you can make the changes you need to make today, as if you didn’t have next year.


Posted

in

by

Tags:

Comments

Leave a Reply