Habits Over Goals in 2023
January 4, 2023 | Words by Gabe Yanez
New year, new you, new goals. Let’s start 2023 strong with NCFIT.
Over the next few weeks in the EOE Newsletter and on this blog, we’ll be touching on some of the most popular topics people usually focus on when coming up with their New Year goals or resolutions.
We’ll touch on nutrition, improving body composition, why setting goals matters, improving performance, and building habits that stick.
As always, if there is a specific topic you would like us to cover, reply to our emails or send us a message on Instagram with your questions or suggestions.
Let’s kick things off!
FOCUS ON BUILDING HABITS
New Year’s resolutions are one of those things that many people in the health and fitness space have strong opinions about.
On the one hand, some will say that resolutions are just an excuse for people that don’t want to take the necessary steps to reach their goals before the start of the year. Why wait for January to take action if you could get a head start in November or December?
On the other hand, a recent study showed that after six months, 46% of people that set a New Year’s resolution are still successful in keeping it. In comparison, of those people with similar goals that were not set as resolutions, only 4% were successful after six months.
That would suggest that something about setting a New Year’s resolution makes you more likely to succeed.
That said, you could take it one step further and focus your New Year’s resolution on building a habit instead of reaching a goal to improve your chance of success further. Instead of saying, “I want to lose 10 pounds this year,” you could say, “I’m going to get to the gym three times a week” or “I’m going to get an adequate serving of protein with every meal five times a week.”
Focusing on the habits instead of the end goal makes it easier to stay on track, measure success, and build consistency. If you only focus on the end goal, it can be easy to get discouraged because it usually takes longer to reach than you’d like.
So remember — habits over goals in 2023.
One Thing to Try This Week: Start Small, Write It Down
Building habits takes patience and consistency, but the nice thing about building habits is that, by definition, once it’s built, a habit requires minimal energy and discipline to sustain.
You do all the work up front, but once a behavior turns into a habit, you can put it on autopilot and move on to the next thing, stacking more progress on top of progress and getting closer to your goals!
So put pen to paper on a single habit you want to work on this year. Studies have shown that writing down a desired change makes it significantly more likely for that change to happen. Studies have also shown that focusing on a single habit makes it more likely for it to stick than choosing to work on two or three at the same time.
So start small and write it down. Let’s make 2023 your best year yet!
