How to: Keeping your sporty resolutions.
Tags: Self Improvement, Health, New Year Resolution, Life Lessons, Sports

New year’s resolutions should be renamed January-and-Half-of-February resolutions. If you can say you’ve successfully kept all your resolutions from last January, stop lying. There’s just something about the commitment of a new year’s resolution that seems impossible come February 1st. However, this year is the year. We’ve seen it all in 2020, which means one thing: we’re prepared for anything life has to throw at us.

With this in mind, it seems like the perfect year to make a very special promise to yourself. Keep your new year’s resolutions!

This article is about a certain area of new year’s resolutions in particular, that being the sporty ones! Whether you’ve promised yourself a run in the park every week, or you’re dedicated to going to the gym every single day, it’s important to understand the effect it will have on your life. If you understand the impact a lifestyle change will have, then it gives you more motivation to keep at it.

Going for a run for the first time can feel really intimidating, as can stepping on to the gym floor. This may be something that has held you back in the past, and is a useful thought when the time comes to procrastinate. The important thing to remember when this thought pops into your head is this: It’s not real. That fear of people judging you and the idea that people are watching and analysing your every move is not real. In actual fact, no one cares.

Something that not many people know is that every person in that room is thinking along the same lines as you. The bodybuilder in the corner? Worried about putting the weights down too loud and everyone staring. The woman on the treadmill? It’s her first time running and she’s terrified of falling off. The boy on the pull-up bar? Afraid he’s going to fail the final rep and the bodybuilder will laugh at him.

Another thing to consider is your own habits. Do you watch people in the gym and laugh at them? Judge them? I know you don’t. If the one thing holding you back is the idea of other people judging, then throw this thought away right now. It’s time to prove yourself to yourself. Show yourself what you’re made of. Prove to yourself that you tougher, stronger and more impressive than ever before. If people are watching, so what? Let them stare in awe because nothing is better than someone who has confidence within themselves to fail that last rep or trip over their lace while running through the muddiest puddle in the whole park. Confidence is sexy, so wear it with pride.

So, now you’re up and running (excuse the pun), let’s talk about the difference between going to the gym alone and participating in classes and group sessions. Both are very influential and can change your life for the better, so why compare them?

Going to the gym alone allows you to focus on yourself. You can go at your pace; do exercises you enjoy and skip the ones you don’t. It’s time with you, for you. Time alone lets you get lost in your activity, and exercise is often more focused and efficient this way. Progress will be made when you get your head down and focus hard on your goals. Some people, including myself, find this much easier to do when they’re in their own space and can work on things they feel will benefit them the most.

Despite this, after the train-wreck called 2020, we are all in desperate need of friends and support networks. Choosing to do classes or team sports will give you opportunities to socialise, and it’s the perfect place to make friends, or even just acquaintances, who are interested in the same type of things as you.

For example, if you go to a yoga class, you’ll be around people who enjoy yoga. In the same breath, you’ll be around those who enjoy relaxation, wellness and peace. Going to a class with others who share your passions and goals often inspires a change in your mindset and keeps you motivated to keep going with your new lifestyle choices. The sharing of aspirations can bring you on leaps and bounds in not only the active side of your life, but also the professional and personal side.

Of course, the best answer would be to do both! Get some sessions in alone where you can get your head down and focus, while maybe going to a class once a week to make connections and learn new ways to train and move. This way, you’ll be meeting both your personal and social needs, which will mean you won’t burn out and you’ll keep your resolutions up simply because you enjoy them, and not because you feel you have to.

It’s important to remember that this journey isn’t going to be perfect. Like everything in life, all good things come with a cost. It’s so easy to skip something like exercise, as excuses are easy to come by. Even something as simple as a muscle ache can mean you procrastinate for so long you eventually stop completely.

To avoid this sort of burn out, you need to make exercise a habit. Something that you have to do, otherwise you feel like your day isn’t quite finished. Motivation is not constant, and it will come and go just like any emotion. Your job is to make sure that when your motivation does kick in, you aren’t starting from scratch every time. The days where you really don’t want to train are the days that really make the difference.

Despite this, make sure you don’t punish yourself if you do end up skipping a session, or procrastinating a run. Even professional athletes experience motivation lapses and wake up wanting to sit in front of Netflix and wrap up warm all day. This is what makes you human, and making yourself feel bad for missing one session will mean you go back to overtraining and experience that same burn-out. It will just get you caught in a vicious loop and you’ll fall out of love with the things that make exercising great.

Instead, let yourself take a day off and make sure you really do relax. Completely sit back, rest your muscles and maybe even engage in a deep stretch. Look after your body and get it ready for the next day. Doing this will mean you’re ready to get straight back into your training, right where you left off. Be easy, kind and considerate to yourself. Progress is a long journey that can’t happen overnight. Accept that this is something that will come one step at a time, and that you’ll take those steps only when you’re ready.

Applying progressive overload is the best way to make sure you’re staying on track while also not overworking yourself. Progressive overload means you tailor your training to your level and then gradually build up the intensity of the training as you become more able. Basically, don’t go out for you first time running wanting to do a 5k in 20 minutes. You’ll come back, having not reached your goal, feeling unhappy and demotivated. Instead, go out on a slow, steady 20-minute jog and just focus on keeping going. The distance and speed will come with time, patience and hard work. A good example of progressive overload, especially for running, is the NHS couch to 5k.

Finally, when you feel like skipping a day or giving up completely, it’s important to remember what exercise really does for you. Facing a year as uncertain as 2020, we’ve all had our fair share of anxiety and stress. Exercising is an amazing way of combating anxiety, as it not only gives you something to focus on and control, but also gives you a sense of meaning and can increase your confidence massively. Physical activity also releases endorphins, such as serotonin, which can improve low moods and make you feel more worthy. Reaching goals through exercise also gives you a strong sense of fulfilment and success.

As well as the mental improvements, sport also has the obvious positives of providing you with higher levels of fitness and strength. This means your body is stronger and more capable, you’re at lower risks of heart and cholesterol issues, and you’re scientifically proven to live a longer and happier life. For all that, a few hours exercising a week seem like a fair price to pay. Especially when those hours can be so fun and rewarding. For me, it’s a no-brainer.

I hope you took something important or new away from this, and I wish you great luck with maintaining and thriving within your 2021 resolutions.

If you enjoyed or related to this article, please leave a clap, get a discussion going in the responses, and share with friends and family who have a hard time sticking to their resolutions!

Happy New Year, and Good Luck!