While January is a natural moment in the year to reset we also believe that the best way to truly take care of yourself is to stay focused on it year-round. The art of goal-setting and following through is just that: perseverance, especially when you've had a discouraging moment.
How you approach health + wellness is personal and whether you're on the January-New-Year-New-You-Resolutions-Bandwagon or not changing a thing about your routine, we thought it would be helpful to share some tips that make it easier for us to stick with our goals year-round (fitness related or not!)
- Come up with goals that are achievable in the first place. You want to run a Triathlon in 3 months, but the most exercise you've had this year is walking a few blocks to drop your kids off at school. We definitely encourage going big, but make sure you set goals along the way that will encourage you to keep going.
- Know yourself. If you hate mornings maybe don't commit to a goal that involves a lot of early mornings. It's great to push yourself out of your comfort zone, but not so far that you just don't follow-through.
- Be realistic. Maybe your goal is to spend less time on your phone when you're home (I'm raising my hand for this one). Come up with some hacks that allow this to become habit. One idea is to come up with a dedicated resting place for your phone when you're home that's out of sight. Another idea is to figure out why you're on your phone so much in the first place. Is it work? Nonstop Instagram scrolling? Reading the news? Waiting for a call? Texting friends? For the things that are important are there other ways to achieve it or is it truly urgent? Only you can answer this for yourself.
- Pick a buddy. Whatever your goal is pick a friend, roommate or pen pal to help keep you honest.
- Invest in the right tools. If your goal is to eat healthier stock up on some containers that you can travel with (we like stasher). If your goal is to workout more get some awesome workout clothes that inspire you. If your goal is to journal make sure you actually own a journal.
The overall trend here is to start goal-setting by picking goals that are meaningful to your life with realistic timelines and expectations. You'll of course have days where you feel like you've failed or aren't staying as committed as you want, but if you start in the right place with the right mindset, it will be much easier to stick with it. And on the days where you feel discouraged remind yourself that you have to start somewhere and whatever you do that day it will bring you closer to your goal, which is better than doing nothing.