Category: New Year’s Resolution

1RM Calculator, body transformation, Brad Schoenfeld, Building Muscle, Building Muscle mass, Building Strength, New Year's Resolution, New Year's Resolution Fail, strenght training, strength training cycle

2024 Strength Training Programs (FREE DOWNLOADs)

For 2024, I’ve created two workout cycles. The first is a 26-week cycle based on Brad Schoenfeld’s Max Muscle Plan, with some tweaks by yours truly. It is an excellent book; it is well-researched with practical guidelines and suggestions. This program is ideal for intermediate to advanced lifters looking to take a more systematic approach to their training and or looking to mix things up. … Continue reading 2024 Strength Training Programs (FREE DOWNLOADs)

Jeff EmblenLeave a comment
BDNF, habit tracker, implementation intention, New Year's Resolution

New Year’s Resolutions – Why Wait?

Our desire for a fresh start causes us to waste a lot of time waiting.  Why wait for a new year, a new month, or a new week. Tomorrow is a new beginning. Why not PLAN today – START tomorrow – and NEVER quit! A lot of people will tell us to start NOW, which isn’t bad advice if you are prone to procrastination, but research has shown that we do better when we have a plan. Research on implementation intentions suggests we will be much more likely to follow through if we have a plan. Planning can be exciting, but don’t let it turn into a form of procrastination. 

If you have a strong desire to implement a new habit, put that motivation to good use by planning when you’ll implement the new habit. Motivation not put to work is like water spilling from a leaky damn instead of being put to work by the mill. Motivation gets us started, but without a plan, we will quickly wander off course. Create an implementation intention. Decide when and where you are going to begin. Develop if-then plans. For example, your implementation intention could be to exercise for 20-minutes each morning right after waking up and drinking a glass of water. You prepare by laying your clothing out the night before and deciding what kind of exercise you are going to do. If 20-minutes feels like too much, you can start with a 5-minute commitment. Your if-then plan could be, if I oversleep or somehow miss my workout, I will exercise as soon as I get home from work. Continue reading New Year’s Resolutions – Why Wait?

Jeff EmblenLeave a comment
atomic habits, creating habits, mini habits, New Year's Resolution, New Year's Resolution Fail, shrink the commitment, The Fat Loss Habit, The Power of Habit, tiny habits, willpower, willpower depletion, Willpower is like a muscle

Why New Year’s Resolutions Fail

Our willpower is severely limited, and every demand for self-restraint draws from a single source. They will look at their list and blame their lack of willpower when they should be blaming their list and their lack of focus. No one has enough willpower for that list. Sometimes a single willpower challenge will feel like one demand too many.

It is easy to blame their failure on a lack of willpower or motivation because if they had an extraordinary amount of either, they could have powered through, but the real culprit was their poor strategy. Anything that is outside of our comfort zone is going to trigger resistance. We want to shrink the commitment so that we only take a tiny step outside our comfort zone – expanding it slightly. Once our Elephant gets comfortable with that, we can encourage him to take additional steps. Our comfort zone will eventually expand. We always want to have enough willpower to keep our habit alive. Shrinking down our commitment ensures we will always be able to do it. These tiny steps aren’t a finish line, they are a starting line. You can always do more when you are motivated to do so, but don’t rely on motivation. Continue reading Why New Year’s Resolutions Fail

Jeff EmblenLeave a comment