How To Stay on Track in 2025
‘Quitters Day’ is the second Friday in January. The day when roughly 80% of people abandon their New Years resolutions.
We discussed the 5 stages of change in a previous email. Quitters Day likely occurs because people reach the ‘messy middle’ and the early excitement and motivation wanes, due to unrealistic goals, poor planning or simply unsustainable actions. People will often quit because of a lack of time, lack of support or overly ambitious goals.
Stick to Health Habits
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Set process goals: rather than focus on a big, single goal, instead break that down into hundreds of process goals. These are the steps required to move you toward your big goal. Goal 1 could be to wake up at 7 am, Goal 2 have a high protein breakfast, Goal 3 walk to work etc.
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Track your progress: use apps, journals or simply notes on your phone to monitor your progress and consistency and set a rule to ‘never miss twice’. So if you miss one goal, you cannot miss the next.
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Routine: we are creatures of habit, routines build consistency. Set out a daily routine that is realistic and aligned to your process goals. Like a road map to success.
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Celebrate small wins: the dopamine we get from hitting and celebrating small process goals is as impactful to our brain as hitting and celebrating a large goal. So celebrate all the small successes along the way.
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Accountability: partner with friends, family or colleagues, hire a coach to gain some accountability. You are far less likely to quit if you work with someone else.
Just Do It
The ‘messy middle’ is the stage of change where most people fall off. At this stage they are full of self doubt and feel frustrated at the lack of progress ‘surely this should be easier’ and ‘surely I should have seen more progress by now’.
Perhaps you begin to discuss the changes with your friends and compare results, look around on the internet for alternative options, again driven by doubt and discomfort.
The only thing that can save you here is the discipline to do what you said you would and stay committed to the course. Just do it.
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At B.fresh we understand the psychology of behavior change and that has led us to develop a series of subscription services that allow you to easily add products into your daily routine.
