January is when gym memberships and dieting spike. But by the second Friday of the new year—known as “quitter’s day”—many people’s fitness resolutions go out the window.
Abandoning your workout goals doesn’t have to be a guarantee, though. Here, fitness experts offer Fortune readers their top tips for setting up sustainable workout routines that will last through the new year and beyond.
Make realistic goals
One of the biggest reasons fitness professionals see people abandon their goals is that they’re not realistic for where they’re at.
To start, recognize where your fitness level is—not where you think it should be. To help with that, try to avoid falling into the comparison trap of social media, says Amanda Katz, certified run coach, fitness trainer, and instructor at Equinox in New York City.
“We never want to compare ourselves,” Katz tells Fortune. “Fitness doesn’t have a look. You can’t look at somebody and determine, ‘They are fit. They are strong.’”
Run coach and physical therapist Victoria Sekely advises anyone looking to exercise more to begin with a frequency and intensity easier than you think it should be.
“Start out very slow and literally just work on getting consistent with it,” Sekely tells Fortune.
For someone just starting their fitness journey or returning after a long break, that could look like 10 to 15 minutes of exercise three times a week, or five to 10 minutes of movement each morning. This is instead of trying to work out for a full hour five days a week, which could lead to burnout, injury, or abandoning your goals entirely.
“If you haven’t been exercising and then you go for 30 minutes and the next day you are completely sore, you are likely not going back,” says Stella Volpe, president of the American College of Sports Medicine and head of the Department of Human Nutrition, Foods, and Exercise at Virginia Tech.
“People think that exercise needs to be huge to ‘count.’ It doesn’t,” says Volpe, “You just have to get your body moving. Some activity is better than nothing. Five minutes is five minutes more than you would have done.”
Opting for an easier workout schedule in the beginning not only lowers the barrier to entry, Sekely says, but helps build confidence that keeps you coming back. “‘This isn’t that bad, I can do more,’” she says you’ll tell yourself, instead of feeling inadequate right away because you started with a goal that was too hard.
Be specific with your intentions
Lack of specificity is another pitfall that leads to abandoned goals, experts say. When crafting them, sports psychiatrist Dr. Brook Choulet advises following the acronym SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.
For example, instead of saying you want to work out more, you may aim to take a HIIT class three days a week for 30 minutes, Choulet says. Katz, who favors variation in a workout routine, says another option could be to try for one day of strength training, one day of cardio, and another free day, when you choose whatever you’re in the mood for.
When deciding on goals, Katz also says it’s important to identify what workout environment suits you best. Are you motivated when you’re surrounded by other people? Would you benefit from a personal trainer at home or in a gym? Identifying what you prefer will not only make exercising more enjoyable, but easier to plan, too.
Sekely recommends physically blocking out time in your calendar for your workouts. Katz adds that you’re more likely to stick to those workouts when you have a plan each week—leaving you with less to worry about how to hit the gym after a busy day at work.
For people who have some experience working out, Katz has a go-to framework she likes to implement to maintain general fitness:
- Two days of strength training
- Two days of easy effort, “conversational cardio,” such as running or cycling
- One hard workout day, such as a HIIT class, a cycling class with intervals, or an interval run—what Katz describes as “something that’s going to spike your heart rate, bring it back down, and back up again”
If you don’t belong to a gym and need some guidance, Sekely and Katz advise using a fitness app or YouTube videos. If it’s within your budget, you might consider working with a personal trainer or fitness coach.
Another option is to start by making movement a natural part of your day—what Volpe thinks is the best way to make physical activity a habit. You can do that by going for a walk during work calls, parking farther away from the office, or taking stairs whenever it’s an option.
Work on mindset, and motivation will follow
Mindset is another important piece of the puzzle—including an acknowledgment that pursuing workout goals isn’t easy.
“It doesn’t have to feel like you’re fully motivated to get started,” Sekely says. “It does get easier.”
When you stay flexible and anticipate setbacks, she explains, you’re more likely to stay consistent since your mindset isn’t steeped in self-punishing talk.
“If you create even more negativity around it, like punishment and reward and that type of stuff, [it will be] way less likely for it to be a healthy sustainable habit,” Sekely says.
Having a more flexible, forgiving approach can help you stay consistent even on your toughest days. During difficult weeks, try telling yourself to just do 10 minutes—that way, you’ll feel proud that you got at least something done.
Another easy mindset shift is to not think of your fitness routines as a “workout” or “exercise,” Volpe says. Simply calling it “movement” or “physical activity” might make it less intimidating and easier to incorporate into your day.
Choulet has a tried-and-true technique for boosting motivation, called motivational interviewing. To do it, you look at the positives and negatives of your new fitness routine and your reasons for doing it by asking yourself a series of questions: What are the benefits of working out? What do I like or dislike about working out? How motivated am I, on a scale of 0 to 100, to instill the change?
This helps to get you intrinsically motivated to exercise, and provides you with a line of thinking to return to on your toughest days, she says.
Don’t forget your ‘why’
One of the most important parts of creating a workout goal is understanding why you made the goal in the first place. What do you hope to achieve and why do you keep showing up for each workout? Whether to change your body or to reach health goals, the answers can be helpful reminders when your motivation dwindles.
Sekely says that while there’s nothing wrong with aesthetic, body-based goals, it’s important to recognize their short-lived nature, because they are so outcome-driven.
“Don’t forget to start to enjoy the journey and start to enjoy the process and create those positive associations around it,” Sekely says. “If you’re enjoying it more, you’re more likely to reach that outcome, versus if you’re just so focused on that outcome.”
And while aesthetic goals can get you into the gym, there are many other reasons to stay, Katz says.
“I look at exercise as an opportunity to actually create more independence in your life as you age,” she says. “I find that most people stay in their fitness journey because of the opportunity to improve their bone density, to create stronger tendons and ligaments…to improve our cognition, to improve our balance. It’s winter, right? So we’ve got to make sure we’re not slipping on any ice.”
More on fitness:
- How long does it take to get fit again after falling ‘out of shape’?
- Walking more could add as much as 11 years to your life, study says. Here’s how
- Pilates dominated fitness trends this year. 4 health benefits of the workout that will make you a convert
- Sitting too much is a danger not even exercise can undo. Here are 5 tips to move more
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