Failure comes with the turf on the road to success

It has been a month since you resolved to exercise more and eat less. Are you still on track with the goals you set out to achieve as part of your “new year, new you” program or has early success been replaced with more excuses than action?

If you’re hanging your head in shame because you fall into the latter category, you’re in good company. Only 55 per cent of those who make New Year’s resolutions keep up their good behaviour through to the end of January. By June, that number trickles down to 40 per cent.

If you’re one of those who have fallen off the wagon, the good news is that in most cases it takes multiple attempts at realizing the same resolution before behaviour starts to change. And since those who make a resolution have more success at changing their behaviour than those who don’t, you’ve made at least one step in the right direction.

So take heart: vowing to change is a first and important step in modifying behaviour, and failure, in many cases, is all part of how we accomplish long-term change.

The key to success then is to keep making those resolutions. And there’s no better time than now to give them another go. Only this time, use your past mistakes to set up a new and improved set of goals. To help you revamp your resolutions of old, here are some new strategies designed for long term success. Be ready

Wanting to change isn’t enough. You have to be ready to make change happen. That kind of readiness needs to include a strategy — and not just any strategy. A good exercise plan includes specifics like what, where, when and how often.

If previous plans didn’t work, take a look at some of the barriers that caused you to drift away from the resolutions you made earlier this month and create specific strategies to overcome them.

If time was an issue, take a realistic look at your schedule and pinpoint the best time of day for you to squeeze in a workout. Target your daily schedule around this window of opportunity vs. trying to adjust your daily rhythms around a specific class or workout schedule at your local gym. Go slow

If you go about change too abruptly, the chance of long-term success is lower than if you transform your habits a little at a time. That may seem intuitive, but for whatever reason, when it comes to diet and exercise we often feel the need to change overnight.

Instead of starting off by exercising three times a week, which slowly dribbles down to twice a week, then once a week, then once every two weeks, work the pattern in reverse.

Start with 30 minutes of moderate-intensity easily-accessible exercise once a week. A weekend walk through the neighbourhood, a local yoga class, two 15-minute workouts on the stationary bike you bought as part of last year’s New Year’s resolutions are all great options.

Once you feel comfortable working that much exercise into your life, go ahead and add a bit more, slowing increasing your weekly commitment until you’ve reached your exercise goal.

The nice thing about this approach is that the motivation to add more exercise comes naturally. As your fitness improves, so does the faith in your ability to tackle more, which is in stark contrast to struggling to achieve goals that were too ambitious in the first place. Bail early

A good fitness program is challenging enough to be motivating, but not so challenging that it eats away at your confidence.

If you have to force yourself to head to the gym, feel over your head during your fitness class or feel relief instead of accomplishment at the end of a workout, you’re either not doing the right thing or doing it wrong.

Granted there’s a fine line between giving something an honest try and giving up, but trust me, when you get exercise right, it feels great. When it’s wrong it’s a chore.

When deciding whether to keep at it or move on, ask yourself a simple question: Do I see myself doing this six months from now? If not, cut your losses and find something that feels right. Make contingency plans

You know what they say about best-laid plans — they often go awry.

If the occasional workout is interrupted because of an unexpected change of plans, that’s no big deal. But if your schedule is constantly in a state of flux, you need to come up with a series of contingency plans that will keep your workout momentum going.

Babysitter cancelled? Keep an exercise CD at the ready and work out at home. Weather put your crosscountry ski plans on hold? Go for a run or hit the elliptical machine at the gym. Travelling? Choose a hotel with a gym, pool or a location close to local running trails.

And remember, even a 20-minute workout is enough to maintain your momentum, so don’t discount the benefit of something as simple as heading out for a quick walk on days when all else fails.