Your New Year’s resolution trouble shooting guide
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Hello help desk? Yes, my New Years resolutions don’t seem to be working. Yes, I’ve tried turning them on and off…
It’s about this time when the warranty of our well-intentioned fitness-related New Year’s resolutions runs out.
Before you toss your New Year’s resolutions in the trash and declare “2025 will be my year”, try these troubleshooting tips and see if we can’t salvage some of the dregs.
Too busy
I hear this all the time about finding the time to exercise. At the end of the day, this is a priorities issue. We don’t magically find a 25th hour of the day on 1 January to exercise (and let’s be honest, would we or would we not use that extra hour to nap?), so some things gotta give, and understandably can seem impossible when your day is already back-to-back with life-supporting activities.
This is where we need to prioritise. What CAN be bumped or consolidated to create space for your health and fitness? For example, you cook dinner every night. Is it possible to make a double batch of dinner one night so the next night your time is freed up to exercise? Do your days get out of control and run out of time/will to live at the end of the day to exercise? Consider waking up earlier. Before you say it, if I got a dollar every time I heard “I’m not a morning person” I could buy a house at 2024 prices. Let’s be real, no one is a morning person initially, you just get used to it. You’re more adaptable than you give yourself credit for.
Feeling burned out
Within 10 seconds of hearing your plans for your new fitness regime, I can foretell whether you will still be pounding the pavement by Valentine’s Day. And the way I can tell is if your routine is excessive compared to what you were doing on 31 December. For example, committing to exercise six days per week. The more extreme the commitment initially the quicker the burn out. Too much. Too fast. Pass me the Doritos and remote. This troubleshooting tip is the easiest to implement of all: slow down. Chill out. Start by exercising three days per week. Commit to that religiously before you consider adding more volume. This way you will be able to establish a sustainable routine which is ultimately what you are trying to achieve.
Too tired
This troubleshooting tip could be coming to you before you’ve even started. In our 2023 mind, we knew that exercise was something noble to attempt in 2024. But in the history of the world have we ever all been this collectively tired? How can we even fathom adding another activity that requires an output that we surely don’t have the energy for? ARE YOU CRAZY? A little but hear me out: you will feel LESS tired when you add physical activity to your day. It’s wild and I know you don’t believe me – you just need to take a leap of faith. Give it a try around and see, because surely trying SOMETHING different that could change your life is worth a chance. Here is the fine print: there is a difference between being TIRED and FATIGUED. Tired is tired and stimulants help. Oh, and sleep \_(ツ)_/¯ Fatigue could be a sign of something that an espresso can’t fix. Consider discussing this with a healthcare professional to go a little deeper.
No (physical) results
How rude that we can’t see our abs after our first workout?!. You’ve religiously stuck to your routine for two solid weeks, and your Christmas box of Lindt balls sits despondent and unopened. Your fruit bowl has never been so full and vibrant. AFTER EVERYTHING I’VE DONE FOR YOU WHERE ARE MY ABS??? If you have given up on your New Year’s resolution because you haven’t seen results, my troubleshooting tip here is this: KEEP GOING. Patience. Results will come. In the meantime focus on the other benefits of exercise that will motivate you to keep going: more energy. Feelings of positivity. Clearer head. Not having to pretend you’re not dying at the top of the stairs.
No motivation
I am actually going to give the person that ever-linked motivation with exercise decaf coffee unknowingly for the rest of their natural life. Linking motivation to the act of exercising is like lighting a sparkler on New Year’s Eve: exciting and fun for precisely 11.3 seconds until you are left with the remnants of a charred wire and burnt fingers. Anyway, whoever THEY were, were a master of marketing to make us believe that we must feel motivated to exercise, and so we WAIT for this elusive feeling to get moving. But here’s the thing. We have it backward. THEY had it backward: motivation is an ACTION, not a FEELING. We have to DO before we FEEL and can you see WHY WE ARE NEVER MOTIVATED??? CAN YOU?
Before I get to the troubleshooting bit about motivation (and take some calming breaths), I want to ask you a question: when have you ever felt motivated to go to work? Floss your teeth? Make a meal. Literally never-to-rarely, but here’s the kicker, we still do them most of the time with a level of discipline. The common factor between these shitty tasks is that they are ROUTINE and this is exactly what we need to apply to our fitness. So, if your fitness resolution is looking more like charred wire than glorious sparkler, it’s time to make your exercise a routine. Put it in your diary. Treat it like an appointment, not an option until something better comes along.
And what could POSSIBLY be better than sticking to your resolution until 31 December 2024?
