We're just over three weeks into 2020. Did you make any New Year's Resolutions? How are those coming along? I'm not a fan of resolutions myself, though before I come off as incredibly smug, I suppose it depends on how you define "New Year's Resolution." Rather than setting resolutions, I like to set goals for myself. For example, my goal for 2020 is to complete a Spartan Trifecta, which is running a Sprint, Super and Beast within a calendar year. I'm going to come back to this in a little bit.
If you did set a resolution or goal for yourself, how is that going? Mine's in a bit of a holding pattern right now because I won't start heavily training for another few weeks, because my first race isn't until mid-May. But depending on your resolution or goal, it can feel overwhelming. I have two main pieces of advice, which are interrelated:
Start small. If you never drink water and you want to get better about hydration, I'd discourage you from making your resolution, "Drink a gallon of water a day." To go from drinking little water to a LOT of water can feel both overwhelming and feel discouraging each day you don't drink your self-allotted gallon a day. For example, let's say you currently drink a 12 oz bottle of water a day. Up that to 16 oz/day. Once you have that down, continue to bump that up. Someone sent me a great article a few weeks ago that goes into more detail on this topic.
Make it SMART. When I was in the corporate world, I used to have to come up with SMART goals. In case this is new to you, SMART stands for: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. My goal to run a Spartan Trifecta this year checks all those boxes.
Does your resolution or 2020 goal(s) also check the boxes? How could you change it so it's SMART? Is it too lofty? How would you break it down?