New Years Resolution, Part II

By Team Beachbody

Don't quit, even if you've already blown your resolution!

Statistics show that most of us have already given up our New Year's Resolution. While this statistic sounds rather sad, it's mainly because most of us set our expectations too high and made unrealistic resolutions. Another common reason for failure is that people set themselves up to fail by making it so hard that they fail early on, and thus eliminate all that excess pressure. Purposely making a resolution you are sure that you'd quit on is, well... never mind, certainly none of us would do such a thing!

Back to us, the forthright folks that made a sound attempt to better ourselves only to have it fall apart less than a twelfth of the way through the year. Don't despair; there are still 11 months to go! And there's no rule that says you can't "reset" your resolution on February 1st! Here are a few tips to help you continue on:

1. Remember rule number 5 from last month. Your ultimate goal is to improve yourself. There is no failure here unless you plain flat give up completely! If you didn't improve as much as you originally wanted, that's not failure, its improvement—just at a more realistic pace that works for you. Don't give up!
2. Tailor your original resolution. Don't quit on your resolution, instead change it. Don't worry that you may be cheating because to really cheat would be to stop. You've had a month to assess the feasibility of the original plan, now you can tailor it to be more realistic.
3. Form a group. Chances are that you have some friends in the same boat. Remember that there is strength in numbers. Get your friends together and come up with a joint plan. Then you can support each other. It's always easier to get off your butt when someone else is there to motivate you. They push you on days you don't feel like working out and you can do the same for them.
4. Cut yourself some slack. No one is motivated all the time. Even the best athletes go through stages when they are unmotivated and slack off on their workouts. Having a bad day, week, or even month is not a good reason to stop. In fact, fighting through these down times are often the most rewarding experiences in retrospect. The best news is that once you start to get in shape and lose weight, it's much easier to rebound from a slip than it is to start from scratch again next year.
5. Winners try again. Every success story has a background of stumbles and missteps. Truly, the only difference between getting in shape is how you respond to those stumbles, because they happen to everyone. So whether you slip for a day, a week, or a month, plan your attack, and get back on it. You've only lost the fight when you quit. And every time you don't quit, you win. So go for it—and remember how good it feels each time you workout, and how good it makes you feel about yourself!