A new year; a new you!!!  With each new year comes an overly ambitious list of goals and resolutions; but how many of us actually accomplish our goals or stick to our resolutions?  At the start of a new year most of us reflect on our lives – where we failed and where we can improve.  Generally at the top of our list is lose weight, eat healthier, and workout more often.   Other common resolutions includes quitting bad habits or improving our quality of life.  We begin a dialogue with ourselves; this year will be better, this year I can do it, this year will be different.   Unfortunately, with each passing week we lose our focus, our motivation dwindles, and finally we just give up and begin to justify with ourselves that “I can’t do this; this is just who I am”.  But, that is not the case!  You just have to begin the new year with the right mindset so that you’re not living life in a revolving door of unaccomplished goals and resolutions.

All this in mind, I began to wonder…. what is the key to developing and maintaining a healthy lifestyle?  So, I reached out to a good friend of mine, Richard Hawthorne – co-owner of Southern Elite Fitness and world-class powerlifter.  (Paraphrasing) Here are the tips he gave:

1. Most importantly, make a change for YOU!  Don’t set out to do something because it’s the latest fad.  If you do, your eagerness to change will disappear faster than the next fad surfaces.  Don’t change because someone else asked you to or expects you to.  You’ll only be successful at making a change if you first set your mind to make a change for noone other than yourself.
2. Make sure your goals &/or resolutions are not the pursuit of acceptance from others.  Once again, it must be for you, not for Instagram and Facebook likes or youtube fame.
3. Set small “attainable” goals.  The key is to make sure they’re realistic and make sure they are bite-sized.  Small victories keep you motivated to move forward and locks your sights on the bigger end-goal. Furthermore, if you only focus on the end-goal you will become overwhelmed and give up.
4. Enjoy the process! To stay motivated and continue to progress, it’s important to enjoy the journey to your destination.  Don’t become so consumed with the end results that you forget to enjoy the pursuit.  If the process to your goal is an agonizing battle/chore, something you dread doing, you aren’t going to follow through.

For continuous motivation, you can get daily tips and advice from Richard on his Instagram or Youtube channel.

For today, here’s some visual motivation for you!! 😉

Pictured: Kamryn Kelley. To see more of this beauty, visit her Instagram.