Phil’s New Year’s blog

Here’s my New Year’s rant–I’ll try to keep it short but it’s not going to be all rainbows and unicorns!  If you’re offended by some harsh language, you might want to skip this blog (though I think everyone could use a dose of tough love once in a while).

‘Tis the season to make a bunch of resolutions and talk about all the great things you’re going to accomplish this year.  It’s a time to ‘start anew’ and it’s certainly the popular thing to do this time of the year.  That’s all a good thing, under one condition–you actually follow through with what you’re saying. 

I meet new people every single week who come to me with all the best intentions and goals set in place; this isn’t a new phenomenon in my weekly schedule.  People from different backgrounds, different interpretations of fitness, and sometimes differing goals–it’s always a fun conversation and it’s one of my favorite parts of the job!  Of course, I’m referring to fitness and health-related goals, but I think the qualities of following through with your decision(s) bleeds over into other aspects of your life, and I’d like to talk about some common themes I see in people’s goal-setting skills (or in some cases, complete lack thereof).

One type of person makes small, realistic goals.  Each ‘micro goal’ is set to be realistic, attainable, and incrementally closer to a bigger, ‘macro goal.’  Tiny step by tiny step, they go through the process (whatever that may be) to achieve the end result (if there even IS an end result; in regards to fitness, you can constantly strive to improve).  I’ve made it through plenty of trials I thought I surely wouldn’t just with that simple process–from terrible workouts, shitty deployments in awful places of the world, a long work week, tough semesters at school, etc.  Get through the day, get through the workout, just SHOW UP, or whatever it takes to get one step closer to wherever it is you’re going.

In order to succeed with this type of goal-setting you must subscribe to the idea of a long-game approach to whatever it is you’re trying to achieve.  Great things don’t happen overnight, or a week, month, or many times in a single year.  It takes many–THOUSANDS–small, tiny, seemingly insignificant victories to eventually add up to a big success.

Another type of person makes huge, unrealistic goals with no real plan in regards to getting from point A to point B (or a better analogy would say getting from point A to point Z without the first clue as to what might come after A in the first place).  You might have every best intention, but without the plan and follow-through, you’re just being a windbag.  Don’t fail–or QUIT–because you allowed yourself to be overwhelmed by unrealistic deadlines and standards you imposed on yourself for no reason other than to subconsciously set yourself up for failure.  I see it happen ALL THE FUCKING TIME.  There is no such thing as huge improvements done really fast.  Huge improvements in anything happen over time and as the result of lots of hard work.  Period.

One last note–it shouldn’t require a particular date displayed on your calendar to make you want to be better than you were yesterday.  That’s hopping on a bandwagon and almost always a crock of bullshit.  You’re not going to suddenly ‘flip a switch’ and change every shitty thing about your lifestyle overnight just because the calendar has a different numeral on it.  It’s unsustainable, unrealistic, and will set 99% of people up for failure.  Just wait–across the country, gym memberships skyrocket in January and plummet in February.  I won’t have it–if you’re here for the bandwagon, you can fail somewhere else.  If you’re here to legitimately begin incremental changes to improve your lifestyle and health, then welcome to the CFD community!  I’m honored to be among the ranks of people who CONSISTENTLY care about their health and well being, and hope more people join us in 2014!

Thanks for reading, and I hope this rant was constructive–it was certainly meant to be!  RLTW <1>

–Coach Phil