New Year's Fitness Resolutions - 7 Steps To Help Reach Your Goals

At this time of year everyone makes resolutions or sets goals, cleans out the refrigerator, closets, dressers and begins the journey of "their new life", only to be dejected and disappointed in 8 weeks because they have not continued or carried through on their journey. They say they failed and proceed to impress upon their own minds that they have failed, yet once again. What if there was no failure? What if failure did not exist and simply wasn't an option?

I can show you in 7 steps how to make failure obsolete in your life. Now, I did not say that I could make your life free of pain and growth, but I can show you a life without failures. Why believe me? Because I live it myself. I show my clients everyday that failure does not exist. Every day, they live lives without failure.

Let's take a look at the "anatomy of failure to reach a goal". There are only a few reasons that goals do not come to fruition!

1. They are not written or they are not written correctly. Tell me if you have heard this one, "Hey Cindy, Happy New Year! Did you make any resolutions for the year? Why yes, Carol, I am going to lose weight this year, finally."
   
   
2. They were never really important enough. If you belong to a gym, you know this one all too well. The parking lot is packed, no cardio equipment available, no room in classes to really workout, machinery is all taken and in 4 to 6 weeks, they will be empty again. Why is this? It's because the "finally getting in shape" goal was not important enough to continue to work through the pain.
   
   
3. They (goals) don't provide the proper "tools" to make it happen. When you need a lawyer, you go to a lawyer. When the water is pouring out of the pipes in your house, you call a plumber. If you're sick, you call a nurse or doctor. But getting in shape, getting your health back, well it's been working for you so far hasn't it? Trainers are not even considered because of the cost. Yes, there are trainers that can afford to live anywhere they want, but they are the exception, not the rule, just like in any other business. We don't cost 1/3 of a doctor and we won't charge for parts!
   
   
4. They were just not in proper sequence. Think of a ladder. You want to climb to the top, but you have to start with the rung on the bottom. It's that simple. Goals have to be completed in such a manner as to be able to climb the next rung. We wouldn't expect a baby to walk at 3 months, but we expect that of ourselves. There is more learning that needs to happen.

That's it! Very rarely will you find one of these statements false. So, if that is it, then how do we keep it from happening over and over and conditioning ourselves to believe a falsehood? Here are the 7 steps to living a failure-free life and it all begins with the goal. We all know that goals are to be written according to the SMART philosophy:

• S = specific
• M = measurable
• A = achievable
• R = realistic
• T = timeframe

That is a good start, but I believe the goals should be NATURAL. N=Now, written as if they are being lived this very second, A=action, written with action, movement towards the goals, T=Tangible, feel it, taste it, touch it, see it, smell it, U=Unusual, this means out of the ordinary for you because ordinary has not been working, R=Realistic, see yourself performing it, A=Appropriate, losing 100 pounds could be appropriate, but not in 2 months, L=Limited, there is a limited amount of time to make it a reality.

That's all there is to it. It's not magic but it might be difficult, so every single reward will taste so sweet!

By Terri Fox