2017’s most popular resolutions were to: exercise more, lose weight and eat more healthier or anything similar under the health category. According to a recent article, only 8 percent of people stick to their resolutions. In theory, January 1st may be an awesome month for most gyms but February 1st shows its true colours through a drop in gym goers’ consistency. The question is why does this happen, why do most people fall off the wagon so easily and at such an infant stage in their journey? What key principles are they missing when they start? What results in them halting their own success? Focus Fitness UK will answer these questions and more throughout this post.
Allocate goals via “Time Blocking”
Creating to do lists have their place and credibility, but when it comes to goal setting, a more pragmatic approach is to put these tasks/goals into your calendar to help encourage a systematic habit rather than chore, this is called “time blocking“.
Firstly, you must use your calendar to block the most important priorities and then fill in all the gaps with your other responsibilities; after that you will not lose time thinking about what you are to do next because the necessary tasks have already been scheduled in. The significance of this is so you can spend more effort on each task independently without your mind or efforts wondering off. Lack of this form of productivity, is a big reason as to why people fail to stay consistent with the gym, mainly because they haven’t allocated time to go or they are too worried about what they need to get done before/after going and thus end up putting it off because “it doesn’t fit into their schedule”. Plan your day one day in advance, and spend a significant amount of time reviewing your calendar to see if progress is being made on the right things at the right time for the relevant due dates.
“The sure sign of an amateur is he has a million plans and they all start tomorrow.”
– Steven Pressfield
Resolutions don’t work. Fact!
“I know plenty of resolutions that have been fufilled by people.” No one ever said. Why? because they don’t work, during the joy of New Year’s, our dopamine levels reach their peak, our euphoria is heightened and our inclination to begin something is driven by a temporary excitement, and this only lasts as long as the New Year vibe lasts, generally one month not one year. Instead you should start now, clearly the new year will have begun by the time of release for this particular post, but the point remains the same. Don’t rely on a temporary positive emotion to drive your goals, use existing energy to fuel your motivation and drive, it is far more economical in the long run.
Social connections
It is true, training alone takes more motivation compared to training with a training partner or personal trainer, this is why it is imperative when deciding on a gym to chose a gym for its social environment and not for its amenities. You really do not need a treadmill with a fancy computer screen filled with irrelevant digital content which will only distract you from your main goals and is truly a waste of time. You also do not need a gym with heated pool, or whatever other piece of equipment a gym offers that grabs your attention.
Join the gym where you are wanted and you can see yourself succed and excel through an encouraging and motivating environment of people. That is where you flourish most, focus on the social interactions at a gym, not the gimmicks. Another proven method of remaining consistent with the gym is to get a personal trainer, which is also part of socially connecting at the gym.
Engaging workouts
If you are like most of the people reading this post, you have repeatedly joined the gym in the past and left soon after joining. Each time you join you completed workouts which feel dreadful and are highly taxing both physically and mentally, ever thought why you never stayed consistent in the past? There is a high liklihood it is because your workouts sucked, they were not mentally or physically stimulating, they did not incorporate training styles you enjoyed and they did not fit your goals. Be intuitive and get creative, the fitness comunity is incredibly diverse now, there is no excuse saying you hate cardio, one does not need to only use the treadmill to burn fat. There are a variety of fat burning methods, you just have to be willing to experiment try new things you might enjoy more. Check out our advent post for some exercises you have probably never tried before.
No excuses. Get it!
For more motivation, read our previous post about “The effect of starting now”.
Written by Daniyal Siddiqui.