The beginning of the year is much like the beginning of a semester. And often remind me of the beginning of a sports training season. You get a chance to make upgrades. You get a chance to reinvest in areas that your team has been good in. Or you get a chance to pivot into other areas that could make your team better. With health in mind, these chances are your resolutions. Here are a few tips to get past any hiccups during the first few weeks of the New Year.
Write It Down
At the beginning of a sports year, every team has championship aspirations. Their journey to a championship is provided in a team schedule. During the season, programs keep track of results and in-game statistics. These becomes archives on many college athletics websites. When developing your health goals, it is important to mimic this behavior. You choose a health goal. Write down your plan of attack. Make a schedule of your daily plans. Keep track of your progress in a daily dairy. Write descriptions like weather, location, what the workout was, and how you felt. Keep the dairy to read from time to time. Writing down your daily activities will give a reassurance of all the hard work especially in low times.
Add Spice
College athletics is very goal driven. But even with specific goals and processes thought out, things don’t always go as plan. Your online ticket service may have a server go down during a peak time. Your stadium sound system may malfunction during a game. With regards to your health, things are the same. Bad weather may keep you indoors. Schedule conflicts may keep you from attending your normal spin class. In these times, just do something. You will find these days usually add a little spice to your monotonous schedule. Focus on enjoying a different workout and less about missing your normal routine.
Don’t Sweat a Missed Day
As mentioned above, things don’t always go as planned. Even worst, sometimes these things don’t happen at all. The college football year seen multiple games cancelled due to hurricanes. Unforeseen events happen. If you miss a workout or can’t eat healthy for a day, don’t sweat a missed day. Stressing over a bad day can make things worse. Often people try to make up for the day putting themselves at risk for over-training. Or stress about its effects on meeting their health goals. One day will not hurt your goals. Get back on your schedule the next day.
Any goal worth attaining will have its ups and downs. What is important is to find ways to get back on track during the downs. Writing down your health goals and keeping a diary, adding spice to your weekly schedule by exercising in different ways when you can’t workout normally, and moving on with your schedule after missing a day are all great ways to stay the course over the long-term.