Health and fitness goals are a thing that people start to think about in the last days of December, and that most people never get around to following through with. In fact, most people don’t even have resolutions—they have ideas and plans for the future, but they’ve never taken the time to sit down and prioritize what their exact goals are. If you’re someone with good intentions, but not really sure where to start, it’s a good idea to take some time right now to evaluate your current fitness level, as well as how you envision yourself in the coming months and years.
Defining Your Resolutions: Tips for Your 2023 Health and Fitness Goals
Resolutions: Do you have them? What are they? How are you planning for them? Are there things you can start to do NOW to begin to work toward them or to get more excited about them?
Think about how you can form new health and fitness habits into your life. What are they and what do you envision the future of your health to look like? Write your health and fitness resolution down and don’t hold back. Now look at the smaller picture and think about a few small things you can do every day that will help to make those goals happen. For example: 1) buy healthy snacks at the grocery store, 2) pack your lunch instead of eating out, 3) drink water instead of soda, 4) choose fruits and veggies over chips and candy, 5) read food labels and avoid processed foods, 6) choose low-calorie recipes, 7) add more veggies to your meals, 8) exercise more often, 9) take the stairs, 10) get some sunshine.
Get really clear about defining your health and fitness resolution. Then start by identifying the small steps you can change in your daily habits that build toward your resolution and motivate you in the right direction.
Write down your goal and post it somewhere visible so that it becomes a constant reminder of what you’re working towards. You might even want to make multiple copies of your goals so that you have one at home, one at work and another in your purse or wallet. That way you can always keep yourself motivated by having them with you at all times!
Trends: If you continue your current lifestyle and eating habits, where are you heading? Is that what you want for you?
Your health is one area of life you can’t afford not to take charge of. It affects everything else you do – your energy level, your mood, your relationships, your ability to think clearly. If you don’t look after it now, it will only get harder each year to make those same improvements. Examine your lifestyle and identify your daily habits, then picture it for the rest of your life. If you know you don’t want to stay in all of your current habits, use “future you” as your best motivator to lose the bad habits and replace them with better choices.
Health is a daily choice. It doesn’t happen overnight or in a single day. It’s about making small changes throughout the day that lead to big changes over weeks and months. Even if you’re already committed to being healthy, there’s probably something you can do better.
Desires: What do you desire for your health and fitness goals and how is this different from where you are? A healthy growth mindset is discovering what you want for yourself, even after reaching goals, and continuing to develop and better yourself. What do you want?
If you’re reading this, I’m going to go ahead and assume that you want to be healthier and more fit for life in 2023. And I’m guessing that’s because we both know that it’s a big deal—it’s a big enough deal that a lot of people make resolutions about it every January. What do you really want once you’ve reached your goals? Do you have a specific body in mind? Maybe you’ve already reached your ideal weight and now you’re trying to maintain your weight while still improving your muscle tone. Maybe you’re trying to increase your endurance so that eventually you can run your first marathon. Maybe you want to improve your flexibility by changing your lifestyle habits. Maybe you just want to get more regular exercise so that you can look better in general and feel better about yourself.
My point is, the reason why we set goals for ourselves is so that we can grow towards the best version of ourselves. If your goal is simply “to be healthier in 2023,” then what exactly does that entail for you? Think about your long term health and fitness desires so you can keep applying them all year long and beyond.
Roadmap: How can you get there? What steps need to be taken? Who can help you or guide you? What will the time/investment/benefits look like?
Even with the best intentions, life gets busy, and it’s hard to prioritize something that doesn’t seem very important at the time. It takes a lot of time and patience to figure out what works for you, and even more time to actually do it. It’s easy to get overwhelmed when we think about all of the things that need to be done in order to reach our goals, but a good plan can set you up for success. Here are some tips for creating a roadmap that will help you reach your goals.
Working towards your health and fitness resolution won’t happen overnight and it won’t happen in just a week either! But a week in the right direction is one giant leap towards your goals. Write out the path that it takes to get to your ultimate resolution in multiple steps. Break your main goal down into milestones or smaller, mini goals that lead you all the way there.
Once you’ve written down your roadmap, point out the places in it where you could use some extra help to take you from one step to the next. For example, this could mean getting checked out by a doctor to see how your body and blood work is doing, or hiring a personal trainer to help bring you from one fitness level to the next when you want to build muscle in a specific area of the body. Perhaps you need to invest in some new equipment that will maximize your exercise or sign up for classes to learn new skills.
These are just examples and will look different for everyone! The important part is that you identify your roadmap so you can follow the path of your progress. Each step is a huge achievement!
Timeline: How soon would you like to see changes? By what date would you prefer to be able to look back and feel proud of yourself for reaching your health and fitness goals?
Whether you’re setting a resolution or an intention, it’s always good to have a timeline in mind, if even only for yourself. It really helps you to stay on track and to feel better about how far you’ve come rather than just vaguely hoping that someday all of your hard work will be visible.
If you’re trying to change habits, saying something like “I want to go to the gym three times a week” is much more powerful than “I want to go to the gym sometime.” If you want to eat healthier, it’s better to say “I want to start cooking at home more often than eating out,” because that way you can start small and build up your confidence instead of kicking yourself for not being able to do everything overnight.
And if your New Year’s health resolution is related to something specific and measurable, like losing weight or getting stronger arms or toning your stomach – then again, having a timeline is key. Setting a date for when you’d like those results is not being too hard on yourself. It’s giving yourself something concrete that you can look forward to achieving. If you’re having trouble setting your resolution in stone, try thinking about the date first, and build your roadmap around that date more realistically!
Conclusion
The New Year is the perfect time to start a fitness program and set new health goals for yourself. Whether you want to lose weight, eat a better diet, gain muscle mass or just get in better shape, there are plenty of ways to make it happen. I hope my tips help you set out on your 2023 health and fitness goals, stay motivated and reach those goals!
Don’t start off by setting unrealistic goals that you know you’ll never be able to reach. That will only discourage you and cause frustration. Instead, set achievable goals along the way and reward yourself for your progress that will lead up to the bigger ones as time goes on. Define exactly what it is that you’re trying to achieve (or avoid).
The most important thing to remember is that you are not alone on this journey! I’m here to help with any questions you may have, so don’t hesitate to reach out if you need assistance along the way.