The psychology of New Year's resolutions

[Speedy60]

There are a lot of posts from folk wanting to start a healthy routine for the new year. I thought this might help with the mental battle. Good luck.

psychologytoday.com/us/blog...

[damienair Graduate]

The secret is to be realistic. Set a realistic goal and a realistic time frame. In 2017 I decided to set a goal of C25K. In 2018 I just wanted to run a little. Last year 2019 I set myself goals as new year resolutions, and I followed up on them. I wanted to run a sub 28 minute parkrun, lose 2 stone in weight, get my parkrun milestone 50 T-Shirt, and run a few 10K and 5K road races. I ended up getting loads of PB’s in 2019, ran 25:36 at parkrun, lost 2 stone , did 36 parkruns in 2019 and volunteered too. I ran a few 10K and 5K road races. But I would not have been able to do any of it without first finding this forum, doing the C25K plan and having a base from running in 2017 and 2018.

I have new resolutions for 2020.

Damien

[ju-ju- Graduate]

Thanks for sharing, an interesting read.... I love having resolutions or goals, New Year or otherwise. It keeps it fresh to change routines and habits and keep challenge in my life. And once you’ve changed the habit or the thing, it becomes normal everyday life so no energy is wasted on worrying about it!

[Speedy60 Graduate in reply to ju-ju-]

I think that's the real key - any new activity has to become the new normal as soon as possible. If you dislike what you're doing and have to talk yourself into it every time, you're very likely to give up: willpower on its own is not enough.

[Distance]

Useful! Healthy lifestyle- On average will live 7 yrs longer. Wow!

[Aspire24 Graduate]

Interesting, feel like it is a habit now having started C25K Jan last year. Been thinking about a new resolution for this year and landed on a simple 30 min park run as to achieve this I’ll have to up my game, embrace intervals, clock up some long runs etc etc, rather than just plod. I did one 10k this year but need to push on🏃‍♀️👍🏃‍♀️

[Grannyhugs Graduate]

What a fantastic article thank you for sharing. It makes total sense. We all have to want and enjoy doing something to continue doing it. Brilliant. Happy running everyone

[SueAppleRun Graduate]

Fascinating, and explains the reason we suddenly just went for our run whether we wanted to or not, in the beginning we talked about it a lot and about whether we were too tired and would put it off u til tomorrow or not, then suddenly about half way through the programme we just went!!! no discussion about whether we would go when it was run day we just went

[Speedy60 Graduate in reply to SueAppleRun]

Because you became runners 😁