I don’t do New Year’s Resolutions.

NOT because I have a problem with goal setting, but rather I believe in goal setting and therefore engage in it year round.

By now, over 90% of New Year’s Resolutions have failed. It is estimated that approximately 80% of people give up on their resolutions by the middle of February.  Gyms actively sell fitness memberships to as many people as possible knowing that less than 20% will actually use their membership for any real length of time.

So the whole New Year thing isn’t working.  Especially when it comes to fitness goals.  That doesn’t mean that goal setting doesn’t work.  Quite the opposite.  We instead need to make some adjustments as to where we are drawing strength to change.

New Year’s goals tend to fail because we draw external strength from a communal magical feeling that this is a special day to help us change, and draw internal strength from our positive feelings about entering a new year and feeling like we have been given a blank slate.  Those feelings wear off!  Fast!!!  We need something stronger to fuel us for the long-term so we can actually get somewhere.

We need internal resolve and we need external support.  In this post I’m going to focus on resolve.

And before you start thinking you have to become some stone-cold, hard-hearted person who shuts off all feeling in order to soldier on… I’m not expecting you to be John Wick.  Resolve is not turning off your feelings.  Instead, it’s choosing to not rely on them to be your fuel or compass.  What does that look like when you set goals?  It means focusing on what you know is going to help you move forward.  It means being SMART.

You’ve probably seen this before, but here’s a very quick review of SMART goal-setting:

Make your goals:
Specific (know exactly what you want to achieve)
Measurable (how will you know when you’re successful?)
Action-oriented (what will you DO to make it happen?)
Realistic (stretch yourself, but be honest with what is possible), and
Time-framed (when will I be done?).

Write it down. Make it a positive statement. Tell others. Recruit allies. You can write a statement like “wouldn’t it be awesome if…” and then set a large goal based on that.

Sign it: “I, Nathan Walton, will do the following specific awesome-yet-possible thing that can be measured in this manner by the following date. <signature>”

Break that down into smaller benchmarks if you need to and get to work. Be consistent over time. And when the goal is health and fitness oriented, I’ve found it very helpful to also book an event where your goal and resolve will be challenged. A place where you can put your achievements into action.

For example, I’ll be running the Ragnar Relay (www.runragnar.com) with a team, covering 300+ km on the run – only 58 km are mine to run. Yeah. ONLY 58 km! I truly do not know if I can do it. I’ve been training hard and trying to eat right, but also struggling with injury. In less than 2 weeks I will find out if I am successful. And I’ll be honest that while training I have felt excited, frustrated, energetic, utterly depleted, ready for anything, and like a failure.  Feelings change.  My goals haven’t.  And because I’m focusing on what I know is going to help me move forward instead of how I feel on any given day I’m continuing to move forward.  And the result is that even if I fail to meet my larger goal perfectly, I will have pushed myself to be better than I was and will have an incredible experience.

Goal setting is an opportunity to test your resolve.  Testing your resolve is an opportunity to be fully alive.  Running the Ragnar Relay is a life experience I am truly looking forward to.  For me, traveling with my team to cover that kind of distance makes me feel alive.  It’s a fine thing.

And I would like for more people to have that kind of experience.  I’ll write another post about finding good support for meeting your goals, but for now just know that if you are struggling with achieving your goals, especially if you have seen multiple New Years resolutions come and go with no actual change, I would like to help you out.  We can create and work on your SMART goals together.  Whether you would like me to support you for a short period of time or provide ongoing fitness mentoring, your goals are important and I want you to be able to say you’re alive and not just existing.

Be sure to check out the coaching options on my website.  And go Live.