When your health and fitness goal progress start to stumble

Most likely you've re-made the same fitness and health goals, a number of times. Does every year of New Year Resolutions look the same? Are the same desires and hopes popping up in your fresh exercise books where you tell yourself that this time it will be different?

What do we do when our health and fitness goal progress start to stumble?

Well you're not alone. I have a number of goals and hopes and plans which I've fallen back on my bum and mentally beat myself up about again and again with thoughts such as 'typical me, here I am again' and 'can I ever actually do this, why do I even bother!?'

I'm now at a point where I'm learning to go easier on myself. Going easier on myself, is funnily enough the solution to meeting my goals after all.

Here are my tips to finally meeting your goals, including health and fitness goals, even if you've not been too successful in sustaining the goals previously;

1) Take it easier and slow the pace down

I've often seen myself as an 'all or nothing' kind of person. If I'm going to do something it needs to be done in a big showy way, no messing around, no grey areas. But.. this doesn't get big results, in fact this gets zero results.

In a personal example, I've wanted to get back into my regular running practice, so I created a schedule putting 30 minutes of running in my local park each morning. Every day! Yes, this feels like a good idea I think to myself - I can be that kind of person who says 'I run every day'.

The fact is I won't run every day. I don't really care for running that much but I really like the idea of it. Now, I instead schedule in a run for twice a week instead of every day.

This works for me as it's much more realistic. I can rest and recover more. It is no longer a chore. I can vary this up with other forms of cardio. I've maintained this practice for the longest streak yet and I'm seeing great results.

If I don't get to go out in the week for a run, I can squeeze my running days on Saturday and Sunday. Then, I don't feel disheartened and I've met my goal of a bi-weekly run.

Sometimes, less is more. If and when it becomes a regular and a solid habit, then I can increase this to 3 days a week and so on. Truthfully, if I persisted with an every day running goal, then I'd not be running at all.

2) Let others do the hard work for you

Im Vegan, if you didn't know (of course you know).

I'm really keen to get plenty of fresh veg into my diet every day, but sometimes the fridge isn't topped up and whatever is in there is often really uninspiring.

To keep to this goal of eating plenty of fresh veg, I have veg delivered to me via a veg box delivery service each week. This is automated and the money comes out of my bank each week and the box lands on my doorstep each week. (It's also organic which is useful and I want to eat more organic food).

I hate waste and so I will definitely eat the veg in the delivery, and I therefore ensure that I get the big box! This is a great incentive to eat lots of vegetables.

What can you systemise to ensure that the hard work is done for you?

I have a couple of clients who get a delivery which comes with a step by step cooking method and all the recipe ingredients neatly packed, making cooking easier and less time consuming. These meals are pretty healthy and are at a fair cost per meal price.

Actions like these help prevent you from reaching for the Vegan cheese and crackers and instead eat a more balanced meal. Like the veg box I order and the recipe boxes my clients order, the variety delivered keeps it fresh and interesting.

The hard work can be done for you in any part of your life, in the areas that need a little extra support. Systemise your goals by letting others do the hard and annoying parts of the job for you.

3) Accept You Will Never Have Perfection

If we steer away from our goals a little, it's OK. Draw a line under it and move on. No harm done. Come back to it as soon as you're ready to. Change your perspective to see these mini gaps from your goal as a healthy break to get some perspective.

The likelihood is you'll see how useful the action is in your life and you'll be glad to come back. Same as if you're feeling unwell or your mental health is suffering or if your energy is going through a low patch - give yourself permission to put your goal routine on the back burner, for a while, til you get any support you need or feel ready again after a period out.

For example, I really value getting my daily steps in, I like to get approx 15k steps a day. Some days Im not up for it and I give myself permission to not leave the house. With rest and patience, naturally I will feel ready to go again. It can be hard not seeing that daily streak not hitting 15k on my app, but I have to accept that I will never be perfect. I am human, and I will have good days and bad days.

4) Maybe You Don't Care That Much For Your Goal After-all

If you have no interest in coming back to your goal again then consider adapting your goal, or binning your goal altogether.

This January, I invested in a water-paints set. I painted two lovely paintings, I surprised myself at how good my paintings were - though my brother saw my painting at my parents house and asked which one of my 5 nieces painted it..

Anyway to cut a long story short, I'm really over painting. I quit. I retire from my 2 hit wonders. It was fun whilst it lasted but no, I'm not sure if I'll ever paint again. the easel and paint set will find themselves in a charity shop very soon.

The truth is, I didn't care for painting that much, I was simply curious, and I enjoyed it, but that was as far as it went. Maybe I didn't care that much for this particular new hobby after all and It is better that I give myself permission to let it go, so I can prioritise other areas of my life instead.

Life is to be enjoyed and healthy goals help us to enjoy life. If a goal is causing us too much stress them it may be worth re-looking at how we are chasing this goal and bringing in some support systems.

It may be the case that we are having difficulty sustaining the goal, because it was never really particularly meaningful and important to us in the first place.

We need not aim for perfection as this can be more damaging in the long-term. Look at the bigger picture and you'll see that doing something towards your goals is often much better than doing nothing at all.

Take time to reflect on your well-being goals. Have they changed with time - as you have also changed and if so, how do you adapt to this?