New Year’s Resolutions, do you love them or avoid them?
If you are on the avoidance side of the debate, I get it. A recent Forbes Health survey found 62% of US adults feel pressured to set a New Year’s resolution and a mere 6% of people claim to stick with it for the whole year.(1) Not very encouraging – especially considering there is a named Quitters’ Day (January 12th), the day most people give up on their New Year’s Resolutions.
But fear not, there is a better way to set intentions for the New Year or simply build better habits! Plus, there is a new collection of workouts on the SunnyFit® App designed for beginners or those who want to ease back into fitness in 2024. These workouts will be released starting in January and will continue to be published over the course of the next several months.
Stick with me for the rest of this blog as we forget about the existence of Quitters Day and take small steps towards a new beginning together.
Why? (Health, the Ultimate Intention)
First, thanks for reading on, now I can admit that I love setting new intentions for the New Year or any time of the year. Change is an inevitable part of life, but with it comes the opportunity to grow, to learn, and to make choices for ourselves. Don’t get me wrong, I too have set intentions that I did not keep – like asking for a guitar for a gift and never learning to play one note. I have also reacted unkindly to change – just ask my older siblings about how I used to flip out at a basic change in what we were having for dinner – HANGRY.
But the one intention that I set every year is to improve my health; an intention where I am not alone. That same Forbes survey lists “improve fitness” as the most popular resolution with “improve mental health”, “lose weight” and “improve diet” all in the top five. As a fitness professional, I am delighted to see people realizing the value of their health. The downside is that most give up.
How do we change this?
New Approach
Research shows that there are a few key elements to goal setting and establishing new healthy habits. Since health seems to be the most popular goal of the New Year, let’s break down each step and learn how we can achieve this goal in 2024.
1. Decide What You Would Like to Achieve for Your Health
Do you want to eat healthier, move more, increase flexibility, or maybe focus on your mental health? All are great choices. My suggestion is to focus on adding more movement as the easiest solution, even if you have struggled with exercise in the past. Trust me – the completion of these steps will make your new healthy habit feel more than doable.
2. Choose a Simple Action to Reach Your Goal
When it comes to setting a New Year’s Resolution or any goal, you want to focus on adding a habit rather than avoiding a vice.(2) For example, going for a walk at lunch versus not going to a fast-food restaurant for lunch. By nature, habits are automatic. Breaking an existing habit is much more difficult than creating a new one.(3)
Choosing to add more movement in 2024 is still a broad action, so let’s narrow it down. Do you want to add to your daily step count to improve your heart health? Do a bit of strength training a few times a week? Get into yoga?
What type of exercise do you like to do – dance, walk, roller-skate, bike?
This is your choice so take a moment to decide.
3. Keep it SMALL
Before we move on, we need to examine if the habit is small enough. The goals that tend to fizzle out more quickly are ones where we bite off more than we can chew. If you only have a 30-minute lunch break, doing a 20-minute workout and leaving only 10 minutes to eat is simply too much. However, committing to a 5-minute walk or 10 squats before you sit down to eat is doable.(4)
Look at your chosen habit and ask yourself, is it small enough? Can you realistically add this new habit to your day? If you are not sure – reduce the number of reps, the amount of time, or even how many times a week. Remember a small amount of movement is better than none. Don’t concern yourself if it will be enough, our goal is to perform an action that we can make into a habit.
4. Habit-stack
This is a popular technique and one that I have talked about before. Think about your daily habits; making coffee, lunch breaks, calling a family member, scrolling on social media - where can you add movement in? Habit stacking allows you to link a new habit to an already-formed habit, making the process of adding something to your day even easier.
My suggestion is to add simple movement while your coffee is brewing or during your lunch break. I do a brief Qigong set each morning while my coffee brews. It gets my day started with gentle movement and makes it easier to add a brief walk during my lunch break.
Take a moment and make your plan.
5. Find Support
Everything is easier with support. The simple act of sharing your health goal with someone can help you stay accountable.(4) The person you choose to share your goal with may even end up joining you – bonus accountability!
Who can you share your goal with?
6. Make Interim Goals
A year is a long time and setting a goal for the distant future can enable you to postpone your efforts more easily.(2) Conversely, goals that are closer in date help to mobilize us into action.(2) Take it a week at a time. Check-in with yourself on how much easier it gets week by week.
Contrary to what the internet tells you – habit formation typically takes longer than 21 days. Research suggests that 10 weeks is a more realistic timeframe for making a behavior automatic.(3)
Below is a sample tracker you can use to make improving your health in 2024 a little bit easier!
New Beginnings with SunnyFit®
How can SunnyFit help? I am so glad you asked. Our team created a beginner’s guide to working out for each major category of fitness on the SunnyFit app.
Each workout is only 10 minutes long and emphasizes the fundamental elements of the piece of equipment or modality. These workouts are perfect to habit-stack with your morning routine or lunch break. Plus, you get the added value of a coach guiding you through the movement to ensure proper form and safety while motivating you throughout.
There are 16 courses, 7 of which require no equipment - just you and your health goals! You can approach these workouts in many ways, but I have a few suggestions below.
- Choose one workout to be your habit for the next 10 weeks, performing it 3-5 times a week.
- Choose 3- 5 workouts and create a weekly plan for the next 10 weeks. (ex: bodyweight strength, cardio aerobics, mobility/stretch)
- Choose one workout to be your habit for the first week, performing it 3-5 times a week. Then choose another 10-minute workout from the same category in the app, if you want to try another beginner workout or level up.
Full List of New Beginnings Courses on the SunnyFit App®
New Beginnings: Cycle – Mandee Miller
New Beginnings: Treadmill – Sam Candler
New Beginnings: Elliptical – Claire Jenkins
New Beginnings: Rower – Eloisa Sachs
New Beginnings: Cardio Bounce – Ashley Wimoni
New Beginnings: Cardio Step – Eloisa Sachs
New Beginnings: Dumbbell – Brittany Noelle
New Beginnings: Resistance Bands – Shira Math
New Beginnings: Kettlebells – Sam Candler
New Beginnings: Bodyweight Strength – Shira Math
New Beginnings: Yoga – Claire Jenkins
New Beginnings: Mobility/Stretch – Chaz Lewis
New Beginnings: Cardio Dance – Mara Magistad
New Beginnings: Cardio Boxing – Chaz Lewis
New Beginnings: Cardio Aerobics – Claire Jenkins
New Year | New Beginning
Are you ready to give a new healthy habit a try?
In 2024 I invite you to start a new beginning of health. A new habit can be difficult to form. But now you know that if you add just a small amount of movement to your day, in less than 3 months that movement is going to feel automatic. If you keep it up, you will have moved more than you would have if you decided to try to do a few hard workouts the first month and gave up before February. Consistency is more important than the amount or the intensity of your movement.
Take it one step at a time and don’t forget the SunnyFit App can help you get started – you’ve got this!
1. Davis, S. (2023, December 19) New Year’s Resolutions Statistics 2024. Forbes Health. https://www.forbes.com/health/mind/new-years-resolutions-statistics/. Accessed 22 December 2023.
2. Oscarsson, M., Carlbring, P., Andersson, G., & Rozental, A. (2020). A large-scale experiment on New Year's resolutions: Approach-oriented goals are more successful than avoidance-oriented goals. PloS one, 15(12), e0234097. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0234097. Accessed 22 December 2023.
3. Gardner, B., Lally, P., & Wardle, J. (2012). Making health habitual: the psychology of 'habit-formation' and general practice. The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners, 62(605), 664–666. https://doi.org/10.3399/bjgp12X659466. Accessed 22 December 2023.
4. University of Alabama at Birmingham. (2014, December 30). Readiness to change is a vital facet to committing to New Year's resolutions. ScienceDaily. Retrieved December 19, 2023 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/12/141230132950.htm. Accessed 22 December 2023.
1 comment
Such a great post, thank you for including the tracker, it’s perfect!!