The goal of this blog is to understand how people achieve their goals or why they fail. Each week I will talk to a different individual (student or adult) about their goals.
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| Created by Ryan Hudson |
As with every new year comes a rapid increase in gym memberships nationwide. New year's resolutions are an incredible way to start the new year off. They are clear goals that you set out to achieve in the coming year. It sounds both practical and beneficial. However, you are more likely than not going to give up on your new year's resolution within a few weeks. This is exactly how my new year's resolution played out.
Day 0 (New Year's Eve): This year is going to be the year I go to the gym. All the other years I just didn't want it. I didn't want to get in shape, I was lazy. This year is different.
Day 1: I go to the gym and I start working. I am tearing muscles so I can rebuild them stronger than ever. I feel amazing. I don't know why I ever stopped going to the gym.
Day 2: I may have overworked myself the day before because my muscles are incredibly sore. However, I am still motivated and I will work through the sore muscles and put in the work.
Day 7: What an incredible and productive week. This week will be just like last week.
Day 10: I have too much school work; I will go to the gym tomorrow and work extra hard.
And that was where the New Year's Resolution ended. As motivated and set on my goals to go to the gym as I was beginning the new year, my goal failed within a little more than a week.
My goal to go to the gym everyday failed miserably, but where did I go wrong. I recently watched an interview with Jim Kwik discussing the power of morning routine and in it he discusses how he plans his day. He will write down three business things he wants to get done and three personal things he wants to get done that day. That for him is a win. Now I hear this and I think back to my goal and where I went wrong. When I began my goal of going to the gym, I was on winter break and did not have a lot of work I needed to complete. This left a lot of time to go to the gym everyday. However, in week two, school started and the workload quickly piled up, which left less and less time to go to the gym.
Now, even though I had less and less time to go to the gym and some days I had no time to go to the gym, I still eventually stopped going even when I had the time. I believe, based on what Jim Kwik said that since I set my goal to go to the gym every day that if I did not go to the gym, my day would not feel like a win. This would then be discouraging as I had more frequent and busier days. If I was smart and thought ahead to when I would be in school and busy, I would have set my new year's resolution to be going to the gym once or twice a week.
My error was not planning ahead and creating a realistic goal. Learn from it.
Day 0 (New Year's Eve): This year is going to be the year I go to the gym. All the other years I just didn't want it. I didn't want to get in shape, I was lazy. This year is different.
Day 1: I go to the gym and I start working. I am tearing muscles so I can rebuild them stronger than ever. I feel amazing. I don't know why I ever stopped going to the gym.
Day 2: I may have overworked myself the day before because my muscles are incredibly sore. However, I am still motivated and I will work through the sore muscles and put in the work.
Day 7: What an incredible and productive week. This week will be just like last week.
Day 10: I have too much school work; I will go to the gym tomorrow and work extra hard.
And that was where the New Year's Resolution ended. As motivated and set on my goals to go to the gym as I was beginning the new year, my goal failed within a little more than a week.
My goal to go to the gym everyday failed miserably, but where did I go wrong. I recently watched an interview with Jim Kwik discussing the power of morning routine and in it he discusses how he plans his day. He will write down three business things he wants to get done and three personal things he wants to get done that day. That for him is a win. Now I hear this and I think back to my goal and where I went wrong. When I began my goal of going to the gym, I was on winter break and did not have a lot of work I needed to complete. This left a lot of time to go to the gym everyday. However, in week two, school started and the workload quickly piled up, which left less and less time to go to the gym.
Now, even though I had less and less time to go to the gym and some days I had no time to go to the gym, I still eventually stopped going even when I had the time. I believe, based on what Jim Kwik said that since I set my goal to go to the gym every day that if I did not go to the gym, my day would not feel like a win. This would then be discouraging as I had more frequent and busier days. If I was smart and thought ahead to when I would be in school and busy, I would have set my new year's resolution to be going to the gym once or twice a week.
My error was not planning ahead and creating a realistic goal. Learn from it.
This is a very relatable struggle. I also try to go to the gym a lot, mostly because I was an athlete in high school and felt weird not doing anything here. I totally understand the difficulty to motivate yourself to go to the gym, especially when you have a lot of school work. I try to go at least 6 times a week, but if I don't make it one day because I am too busy, I don't sweat it. I think that is an important aspect of keeping with a resolution or routine. You have to be flexible and not get discouraged if you miss a day or two, just go the next day, but don't give up! It's really not as bad as it might seem! I think that setting your goal for two days a week is very realistic and manageable, and is definitely better than not going at all.
ReplyDeleteKevin, I find this relatable as well. Like Natalie, I was an athlete in high school and I felt awful giving it up my first semester of college. I tried to go to the gym a few times a week last semester, but I felt like I didn't have enough time. Moral of the story, I had the time, not the motivation. What has helped me this semester was signing up for a club sport. I joined CrossFit here at Penn State, and with regularly scheduled practices (and lofty dues $$) I find myself at the gym more and more. Sometimes, you just need someone else to motivate you, and once you finish a workout, you'll question why you didn't want to go in the first place.
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