80% of New Year’s resolutions fail by the end January. That’s according to a report published by US News & World Report in 2015. Congratulations to those are still going strong! And if you have struggled to maintain your new habits or stay away from your old habits, start again tomorrow and call it a “February Resolution.”
The Struggle is Real
On Monday night I posted on Instagram that I nearly gave in to the temptations of a zillion justifications to not get on my bike despite the fact that it sits in the trainer just three feet from my desk. But I pushed through and at 8:40pm I climbed on for a 25 minute spin session. It was the proudest moment of my 2019 and I felt about a ten zillion times better for having done it. It was the 21st time in 29 days that I got in a spin session on the bike. On the other days I’ve either skied, snowshoed, or done the NPR workout.
Accountability
Without a doubt writing this blog and posting on the Ed Tech Fitness Flipgrid is the biggest factor in keeping to my New Year’s Resolution to improve my health. If you need help staying motivated, try joining the Flipgrid or doing something like putting an accountability chart on your refrigerator.
Small Goals and Diversity
“Improving fitness” is a broad and seemingly never ending goal. In fact, it can feel overwhelming to think, “I have to do this for the rest of my life.” I’m not thinking of it that way. Instead I’m focused on the small things that I can do to improve my health. That’s the whole idea of the Ed Tech Fitness challenges. They’re not huge, “change your life now” type of challenges. Instead they are small challenges that you can do for a week to improve some aspect of your physical or mental health.
Mixing in different types of activities and challenges prevents some of the boredom that can creep in when doing the same exercise over and over again. Even when I was riding my bike 300-400 miles a week I would get bored and seek new routes just to change the scenery.
Stickers!
I had some Ed Tech Fitness stickers made. They look like the one in the picture above just not pixelated like in the picture. If you have a United States address and would like one, just send me an email richard (at) byrne.media and I’ll drop one in the mail for you. I have a few dozen left as of this morning.
How’s Your New Year’s Resolution Going?
How did you do this month? What’s your goal for February? Leave a comment below or post on the Ed Tech Fitness Flipgrid.