Are Training Resolutions Hard to Keep?

The last few days, it seems like I've seen half a dozen stories about how hard it is to keep New Year's resolutions. The most recent, appeared in today's Boston Globe under the title "Why is Change So Hard?" It's hard to argue with the general conclusions of this and the other articles, "change can happen only if people don't set their expectations too high or try to tackle too many changes at once...People are better able to make changes in their lives with the help of others..." etc.

Why is Change So Hard?

I had been thinking about writing about new training habits for the new year, and these articles got me thinking about the whole new year's resolution binge that so many people go through. It seemed to me that there were some obvious things that these articles missed. So at the risk of just adding one more stupid essay to the pile, here are a few observations for the new year.

#1 - Habits are habit-forming

It's really amazing how much of what we do day-to-day falls is the result of our habits and the patterns of behavior we have established over a long period of time. However, I don't happen to believe it is that hard to change one habit for another. I think we do this more often than we think, for example, changing what time we wake up, what route we take to work, what section of the newspaper we read first, and so on. These habits are fairly easy to change because they don't involve a lot of pleasure or pain one way or the other.

But changing a habit like this does take time. If I decide, for example, that I want to get to bed earlier and wake up earlier so I can beat the morning rush hour, it usually takes me at least a week or two to get into the new routine. If I make it through that adjustment period, I'm all set. If not, I'm right back into the old routine before I know it.

I think with training, if one wants to train more effectively, it's saner and more beneficial to target some of our simple habits, rather than resolve to run 100 miles a week or do 1000 crunches a day. Here are some modest suggestions:

- Get 30-60 minutes more sleep each night (try getting off the computer 30-60 minutes earlier in the evening)

- Three times a week, do 10-15 minutes of body-weight exercises involving core muscles (push-ups, crunches, one-legged squats, planks, etc.) after your normal run

- Find at least one new person to run with, and ask them about their training and their goals.


#2 - Decide to Decide

Some changes are hard, but many changes are not so hard. For example, changing one's habits to go bed at 11 p.m., or run every day are not really that hard to accomplish. All it really takes is making a decision. Ah, but deciding to do it and accepting the consequences of that decision -- THAT'S hard.

The way it usually works is that we make a conditional decision, without really realizing it, I might add. So we say to ourselves, "I'll run every day UNLESS I feel tired, or have a sore throat, or have a social engagement, or it's too cold, or it's too hot, or my shoes are muddy..." There are always many, many good reasons not to run. Believe me, as someone who is definitely not addicted to running, I find it very easy to miss days, and when I do, it is almost always because I've decided, CHOSEN to let something else be more important.

I think that it's important to view our behaviors -- what we actually do -- as the result of our choices. So the question is, what do we really want to do? When we answer that question honestly, and then decide to act on our answer, then I think we can change our behavior.


#3 - Give Yourself Credit for Small Victories

When something makes us feel good, we tend to want more of it. So to reinforce desirable training behaviors, we should give ourselves credit when we do the right thing.

How do we do that? Well, to some extent, the trick is to always have a good mix of goals -- some big and far away, and many small and more easily attainable.

I'm a big believer in having daily goals. I think it's useful from a training perspective to know the purpose of any given run, and to get in the habit of setting and meeting a goal for that run. I think the key is to make that goal realistic and appropriate. Some days, the goal is to do a tough track workout and complete it at goal pace. But some days, the goal is just to get out the door and get in a recovery run.

I also believe that if you aren't meeting your daily goals most of the time, there is something wrong with the way you are setting goals. Training should be satisfying - ideally it should leave you satisfied just long enough so that the next day you want to get that satisfaction again. There are some athletes -- and I admire them greatly -- who have such desire that only very hard workouts on a daily basis will satisfy them. However, I am not that way. I need a hard workout about once or twice a week, and a lot of moderate runs in between. One of your goals has to be to get to know yourself better, and determine for yourself what satisfies you.

Once you know that, then you can create a training routine that you can follow and that provides the positive feedback that will lead you to better habits, and ultimately to better performances.