5 Action-Based New Year’s Resolutions

Is part of your new year’s resolution to get fit? Lose weight? Fit back into your skinny jeans? Look like that one fitness model you see on Pinterest?

Well these goals might get you in the door, but in the long run, they won’t keep you here because they are too general, and you won’t see results of that goal until the very end (when you meet it – hopefully). Instead of these inspiration-based goals create a set of action-based fitness goals that are specific and that make it easy to measure your progress.

Example of and inspiration-based goal: Fit into high school jeans again!

Action-based goal: Perform a dead lift with 1.5 times your body weight! Deadlifts are movements that require you to hinge at the hips to bend over and pick a weight up off the floor. Because you can power this move with some seriously heavy weight, it packs a major punch for your strength and your physique. It’ll get your butt back in shape!

Another reason that action-based goals are better for you, is that goals rooted in a comparison to someone else, or that are self-loathing of the person you are now are self-defeating. You’ll hurt your chances for success based just on how you decide to word your goals. So you can have a goal to look like that one girl on Pinterest… or you can have a goal to do a full pull up this year. One sets you up to compete with yourself and will allow you to see the progress you are making each week – the other one sets you up for disappointment (the only way to look like someone else it to share the same DNA).

Inspiration: You want arms like Michelle Obama

Action: Perform a full range of motion pushup (not the girl kind). To get a shapely upper body (and a solid core workout to boot), focus on pushups. This bodyweight exercise targets your pecs, anterior deltoids, and triceps—and because they require no equipment, they can be done anywhere.

Inspiration: You want to drop that last 15 lbs.

Action: Work your way up to running 3 miles a day, 2-3 times a week!

Inspiration: You want a bikini-ready body.

Action: Sign up for Fitcamp and compete with yourself each month!

Inspiration: You want a six-pack.

Action: Perform a strict bodyweight pullup.

Pullups are the queen of upper-body exercises and not as elusive as you might think. Pullup reps require full-body tension from your lats and biceps (the muscles in your back and upper arms), your legs, your glutes, and guess what else? Your core.

Getting better at pullups is all about adapting the movement to meet you where your strength is currently at. Start by placing your hands on a pullup bar and jumping up high enough to bring your chin over the bar. Come back down immediately, landing softly on every rep. As you get stronger, jump up and keep your arms bent to hold your chin over the bar for as long as you can. Keep your entire body tight, and make sure to brace your core. (Like someone is about to punch you in the belly.) When you get great at that, jump up and hold for a beat, then slowly, slowly, slowly—keeping your whole body tight by bracing your abs and squeezing your glutes—lower yourself down to the ground.

The takeaway is this: Action-based goals are both physically and mentally rewarding. Learning new skills will lead to a strong sense of empowerment and self-efficacy. Change your language from  “I wish” to “I can,” and see what happens. If you believe you can do more, you can do more—and that’s worth so much more than being able to squeeze back into your high school jeans.