If you’re like 92 percent of people who make New Year’s resolutions, you’re looking back at a failed exercise strategy by this point in the year. That said, this doesn’t make you a failure. It also doesn’t mean that you need to give up on fitness altogether. Instead, it means that you need to scrap the idea of a resolution and look at your fitness in a new way. It’s time to bring your efforts back to life in a more realistic way so that they’ll stick.
There is nothing wrong with a New Year’s resolution. Resolving to do something can be a very good step. However, using a date as your motivation instead of something else can leave you with a failed exercise effort and a lack of motivation to try again. Research has shown that there is a 46 percent difference between a person’s plan to exercise and the action they take to actually do it. More than 80 percent of American adults aren’t meeting the recommended minimum of 150 moderately-to-vigorously active minutes per week (as recommended by the World Health Organization).