I don't know if you'll agree, but to me, this year has felt like a long March (both meanings of the word apply). One minute, people are chattering about this new "Chinese Virus" while you think "would you give it a rest? There have only been a few hundred cases in China". The next; COVID is a word you are absolutely sick of and want to hear no more talk about it. And, suddenly, almost a year has flown by?!

 

There is a lesson in here for goal-setting. Very few people set goals for 6 months, 1 year, or multiple years. Those time periods just seem too long. Interestingly, this is a trend I see most among younger clients that I work with. It is often those who are in their 30s or 40s (sorry ladies and gents, that's considered old for the purpose of this discussion!) who are more likely to sign up with goals like the following:

 

 

 

...and so on.

 

 

I am sure you have heard people utter "life is short", but also "you have your whole life ahead of you / so much time to fail". Whether you view life as long or short depends solely on the question...

Back to the point. If you decided to read 10 pages of a textbook per day back in January when COVID was first mentioned, you'd have read in the region of 3000 pages, or 3-6 dense textbooks. 10 pages of a regular novel/shorter book, and you'd be through 10. That's not a lot of pages.

 

But, come on, we all know that when people set reading goals, they're like "I'M GOING TO READ 3 BOOKS A WEEK". Yeah, for one week, and then you give up. This happens over, and over, and over again. 

 

Health and fitness is the same, of course. If you are someone who has been trying to lose weight for quite a while, losing 0.5kg per month probably sounds like absolutely nothing to you. It would be an unworthy goal. But, if you had aimed for that in January, you would be over 5kg down at this point. And, because you took it so slowly, you'd probably have barely felt the changes in your diet, and it's basically just your norm at this point. 

 

Instead, there are probably some of you who said, in January, "I'm going to lose 10kg by March". You tried, you lost 4-6kg by February, but then the stress of COVID, change in work, etc. made that unsustainable, and you ended up where you started for most of the remainder of the year. 

 

Does this apply to training? Of course. 

 

The real winners of the 2020 fitness game were not the perfectionists. It was those who say to themselves "yeah, I'll get some training in, mightn't be perfect, but better than not training". With closed gyms, the option to follow the so-called perfect plan was no longer there. You needed to get some push-ups in, the odd jog, and so on. Again, I came across plenty of people who turned this into a process of excess once again with attempts to do 1000 push-ups per day, run 10km everyday (with no prior running!), and I'm sure you have seen other examples.

 

There's a pattern here...

 

We all want more than is reasonably achievable, and we want it sooner than everybody else. We want to be special, despite believing everyone can achieve the same things if they just try harder. This is fallacious. Outliers are outliers, and you probably aren't one (sorry). The chances are: you are probably another mediocre gym goer who will try dumb shit over and over, continue to fail, and [hopefully] realise that you are not the survivor that makes up survivorship bias. I'm with you, bro/sis.

 

This does not mean you should not try to be the best at whatever it is that you are aiming at; I encourage that. However, if you have past information that suggests that you tend to aim too high and give up as a result, you should use that to inform. 

 

This is all part of being a scientific thinker who tries to make decisions rationally...

 

Let's analyse this scientifically...

 

Here we have 5 "experiments", and the hypothesis (successful weight loss) has been rejected. Therefore, we can conclude that, with the approach used, successful weight loss is unlikely. To continue trying to lose weight in the same way, without changing any of the circumstances to contribute to said failure, is irrational.

 

Overall, I think most people probably started 2020 with great intentions. A goal for December would have seemed too far away. But, at least from my perspective, that time has flown. If you had finally dedicated a solid year to that gaining phase you always bail out on, you'd be bigger and stronger now (although, the gyms being closed wasn't great for this goal). If you had finally decided to just make some subtle tweaks to your diet and ditch the restrictive meal plans and yoyo-ing, you'd probably be leaner by now (with more sustainable habits). If you had set a small, achievable reading goal, you'd have accumulated quite a bit of knowledge by now.

 

I'm sure you get the trend here. As we head into 2021, you may think to yourself "this is the year I am going to CRUSH IT and be more dedicated than ever". I love that, but, why not start by assuming that your past behaviours are going to be most predictive of your future behaviours. This is the reality for the vast majority of people. So, instead of setting absurd goals with practices that only extreme outliers could adhere to, why not prove to yourself that you could first improve your diet/training/education habits/money management (etc.) by just 10%?

 

Or, you could satisfy your feelings for week 1 of 2021 while you feel motivated, and end up making no substantial change to your life by 2022. Your choice, kiddo!

 

Anyway, thank you for taking the time to read this. If you would like help toward your goals, you know where we are, and we are taking on clients for 2021. If that's not for you, then feel free to reach out with any questions or concerns you may have about moving toward your goal; it would bring me great joy to know that 2021 was your year, and if we played a part in that, well that would be even better!

 

If you want to check out more of our recommended resources, visit the link below, where we have archived all recommendations from previous newsletters.