Three Reasons Why New Year Exercise Resolutions Fail
It’s late February and for many people, New Year’s Resolutions are probably just a distant memory by now.
Sadly, for many people, those good intentions on January 1st were lost in the chaos and reality of life by January 15th, let alone February 15th.
February 28th may seem like a strange date to raise this subject, but that’s because I believe that a date in spring, like March 1st, for example, is a much better time for setting a new course or making a new change in life.
First, though, I want to look at what I think are the three main reasons why new year resolutions fail, and I’m particularly interested in those resolutions that involved taking more exercise.
1. You need more than the word ‘More’
The clue to the first reason was in that last sentence. The word: More. A lot of people make their new year’s resolution to take ‘more exercise’. The trouble with ‘more’ is that it isn’t defined. Most of us have targets at work, for example to achieve 10 sales per month or generate £50,000 in new business. We don’t have targets like make more sales or generate more money. Pin a number to the target and you have something to aim for and be measured by at the end of the week, month or year.
Likewise with exercise, a target to walk more is pretty woolly and unlikely to get you out of the door on a cold, wet, windy, dark January 10th, whereas having a target to walk a mile every day of the year or walk at least ten kilometres every week is the kind of personal challenge that will create a determination within you to get outdoors and succeed.
Set yourself a realistic challenge with a definite target and you’re far more likely to retain your focus, keep going, and gain the kind of physical and mental health benefits you had in mind when you set the target.
2. Really let your imagination loose
Another reason for resolutions hitting the buffers within the first week or two is a lack of imagination in the content of the target. New year resolutions that state something bland like, “I will cycle to work more” or “I will walk more” could be made more interesting and challenging by adding a bit more detail to the activity.
The following are examples of the kind of imaginative challenges I would encourage people to adopt:
· “I will cycle to work at least twice a week throughout the year.”
· “I will walk at least one mile every day.”
· “I will walk at least ten kilometres every week of the year.”
· “I will walk at least 5,000 steps every day of the year.”
The great thing about setting an imaginative target like these is that you can set your challenge at your level. These are just examples. You can come up with something that suits your circumstances, and you can even tweak that challenge at a later stage to make it easier or harder if necessary.
In my book, Find Time for Exercise, I suggest ten principles for increasing your activity levels. One of those principles, possibly the most important one, is: “However much exercise you currently take, even a small increase in your level of activity could provide you with benefits to your health and happiness”. The aim of a new year’s resolution and any exercise challenge has to be to generate an overall increase in your activity levels and to be able to sustain that increase, long-term, into the future.
3. Choose the right time of year
I think the biggest problem with exercise-based new year’s resolutions is the time of year. Aiming to increase your exercise levels is a great objective to have, but January 1st is one of the hardest dates on which to commence that task. Daylight is in short supply, and it tends to be cold and wet, and the end of winter is nowhere in sight.
Which is why I’m writing this article now. March 1st is a much better time of year to start on that exercise journey. The days are longer than they were at the start of the year and getting noticeably longer by the day. Within four weeks the clocks will change, and we will have light evenings for the next seven months. Not only that, the temperatures are rising and the thought of going outside for a walk, run or cycle ride is so much more appealing.
If you do manage to set out on a new challenge in March and keep it going through the summer, then by the time the clocks go back at the end of October and we head into another winter, you will have turned your challenge into a habit. If, for example, you have walked a mile every day from March 1st to October 31st, then you are likely to be able to keep it going through the winter months ahead.
So, if you had good intentions at the start of the year but didn’t quite get your new exercise regime to work out for you, then give it another try this springtime and, with a bit more thought and imagination, you might just have more success.
