Interview & Opinions by: Ruaidhri Marshall

The New Year is upon us and those of us who regularly exercise have yet again set fitness goals, but how do we ensure that we stay on track?

Conditioning our brains to stick to our New Year’s resolutions can be hard.

In this post, I look into how we can find motivation from within, to not devalue our commitments and realise that taking small steps in the right direction is the answer.

It’s that time of the year again. Whether you like the idea or not, we’ve all subconsciously set goals and aspirations for the year ahead. That new pair of running shoes are staring at you from the corner of the room, giving you an itch to get outdoors. But what’s stopping you?

The deadliest form of procrastination is the type that affects your aspirations, not your chores. There are hundreds of life gurus on Instagram and Twitter that offer inspiration. We all have somebody we follow on social media, the influencer, who has the ultimate ten commandments for kicking yourself into gear. After a scroll through your feed, you’re ready to run a marathon, but the truth is, after a couple of months the motivation fades. The new pair of shoes feel less exciting and you potentially start making excuses and procrastinate – putting off that daily run.

Your New Year’s runners high is wearing off, so how do you make sure you keep to your promises?

Disclaimer: I’m not an expert and its different for all of us, not one person has it the same way, but here’s a collection of advice I can personally vouch for.

One step at a time: don’t devalue yourself by setting unrealistic New Year Resolutions

Some of you I’m sure will stay true to your sacred resolutions all year and for that I salute you. Most won’t.

Every time you make a promise and break it, it creates conditioning in your brain that breaking a promise hasn’t really affected you. Sure, you’ll feel disappointed but after a few days this will fade, and you carry on with your life. Understandably, work and family get in the way and you might start making up excuses to not go on that daily run. There has been no real negative to not fulfilling your resolutions. This leads to your mind subconsciously devaluing your commitment to achieving future goals you’ll have in mind.

Consider this off-field example: one day, a person tells a lie to his friend, a small white lie. They get away with it and there’s no real consequence. By not seeing any consequences, they feel there has been no harm to him or her. But then the lying becomes more consistent and they get used to it. Concealed in their mind is now the tendency to break from the truth and lie more and more. This will eventually catch up with them, leading to the relationship suffering. Even if the friend doesn’t find out about the mounting of little lies into major ones, they have devalued being truthful. Therefore, their self-respect lessens and they can’t keep promises as easily.

Linking this example back to working out, it is a classic case of devaluing your own self-worth. The more you don’t keep to your own promises and resolutions, the more you become desensitised to not feeling the repercussions.

Set realistic goals and make small steps at a time. What follows is bitesize chunks of success. When you begin to feel success, you will yearn for it more whilst also feeling a deep sense of self-confidence.   

As discussed by Onnit founder Aubrey Marcus, ‘’You trust yourself less. Better to make a small commitment and to stick with it, than a grand one and fail.’’

Putting challenges in front of oneself and attacking them.

Many crave to find a boost of motivation through looking out towards others, but the truth is you must train yourself to find motivation from within. It might sound whimsical and a good sound bite, but I believe it to be true.

The main way to find consistency in running or any endurance sport for that matter, is to put challenges in front of yourself every week. These challenging runs, which could be slightly out of your normal capability, but are realistically do-able, will teach you to deal with discomfort. What’s on the other side of that run? What’s over that hill once you have endured all the pain? Total undeniable accomplishment and self-worth.

Only capable of running a 5k? Next time run 6k. A few months later when you have time to reflect, you could be entering a 10k sportive. Most endurance sports are about mental strength, strength conditioned into the mind.

In a quick fix impatient world, it’s hard to grasp that success doesn’t happen overnight. It is an endurance sport in itself. As ultra-runner David Goggins famously states, ‘’be 10% better than you were last week’’.

After all the social trends and motivational speeches, it comes down to you yourself. It’s about learning how to discipline your mind into finding consistency. Of course, you may even have off months and periods of the year you naturally fall behind your goals. The true test is picking yourself up from these spells. This can be done in remembering what was on the other side of that long hard run. Recalling your self-inflicted runners high can motivate you to start putting on those running shoes once again.

…If you want to go more in-depth on this subject, I recommend learning about the Self-discrepancy theory. A common feature in sports psychology channels, this theory can analyse why people tend to put off their aspirations.

Self-Discrepancy Theory ~ The self-discrepancy theory states that individuals compare their “actual” self to internalized standards or the “ideal/ought self”.

Inconsistencies between “actual”, “ideal” and “ought” are associated with emotional discomforts and therefore can lead to procrastination on

Click our Learn More button below to direct you to an interesting article on this theory by writer David Kadavy: How to stop putting off your dreams.