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Five Ways to Stay on Track with New Year's Resolutions

Is your New Year’s resolution to run more? Is it to reach a new personal best? Maybe you are finally making the push to start running regularly—or perhaps 2020 is the year you plan to run your first marathon. A new decade is the perfect opportunity for a great resolution—yet, all too often these resolutions are thrown away, abandoned for one reason or another. That never feels good—but this year can be different. No matter the difficulty, here are five tried and true strategies you can implement to keep yourself on track with your New Year’s running goals.

1. Scale manageably. If your goal is to work up to a marathon, for example, you must pace yourself and scale your training appropriately. If you push too hard in the first couple of weeks, you have a much higher chance of burning yourself out early on in the year—and potentially before the training becomes a habit. Even worse, you could suffer an unexpected injury as a result of pushing too hard that seriously impacts your ability to reach your running goals. Make sure your regimen gradually increases its intensity up to your desired endpoint so that your body has time to adjust.

2. Set goals along the way. While having a long-term resolution is great, it helps if you also set shorter-term goals along the way to help maintain a sense of progress. Before you can run a marathon, you must be able to run a half marathon (and so on). Breaking your objective down into bite-sized achievements is stellar for motivation in the long haul, making it clear that you are accomplishing what you set out to do and you are demonstrably improving toward your final goal.

3. Make yourself accountable. Telling others your resolution is a great way to make sure you actually accomplish it, as it makes you accountable to them. Since someone else knows that you are trying to honor a New Year’s resolution, you may be more motivated in order to avoid an awkward conversation where you have to explain you didn’t quite keep to what you had planned.

4. Accept setbacks. Unexpected obstacles are inevitable, but they should not spell the end of your efforts. View them as another opportunity for growth and a chance to prove what you are really made of.

5. Celebrate! It’s no secret that we like to reward ourselves. If running itself is not the prize, figure out what is! Plan for some kind of celebration that commemorates your efforts once you have followed through. If nothing else, looking forward to the prize at the end of your hard work is something to keep you working on your goal.

Ultimately, working toward a New Year’s resolution is a head game. With the right planning and a healthy mindset, your 2020 running goals are within your grasp.