Ep. 84 STOP Making New Year's Resolutions: The Smarter Way to Achieve Your Goals

In this episode, I’m diving into why most New Year’s resolutions fail and how you can break the cycle of frustration to create real, lasting change in your life. If you’re tired of setting the same resolutions year after year only to quit a few weeks in, this episode is for you.

I’ll explain why generic, vague goals like “lose weight” or “get fit” don’t work and how to replace them with SMART goals—Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound objectives. We go through real-life examples and how to break big goals into actionable steps that are realistic and motivating. I also share tips on finding your intrinsic motivation, building sustainable habits, and making 2025 the year you finally see the changes you’ve been wanting for so long. If you’re ready to stop setting resolutions that don’t work and start creating a plan that delivers real results, this episode will give you the tools and inspiration you need!

Topics we'll cover:

1. Starting Small: Why beginning with just 2-3 manageable goals is key to avoiding burnout.
2. Trusting the Process: How consistent, small actions add up to big results over time.
3. Measuring Progress: The importance of tracking your efforts to stay aligned with your goals.
4. Seeking Accountability: When self-discipline isn’t enough, investing in coaching or support can make all the difference.

For next level fat loss strategies, hormone/gut health help, serious performance goals and unparalleled support, apply for Mountain Metabolic coaching. Learn more HERE.

For more free wellness resources, hiking/travel guides, and other blog posts, check out my website HERE. 

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What is Fit for Hiking?

Where fitness and outdoors meet. In this space we chat all things hiking, exercise, wellness, adventure, motherhood, and metabolic health from a female perspective! Get ready to learn + be inspired to live your fullest, most adventurous life!

Hi, my name is Brady and I'm a long time fitness professional and midwest girl turned mountain living hiking addict. And combining my knowledge of fitness and passion for hiking, I've helped hundreds of women get lean and strong for the trails. Think of this as your one stop shop for both education and inspiration on all things female wellness, trail talk and adventure. Hiking, female metabolism, motherhood, nutrition, travel and fitness are all topics you'll hear discussed here. If you are outdoorsy and active, looking to level up your health, unlock your potential, and become inspired to live your most vibrant life, you're in the right place. You're listening to the fit for Hiking podcast. Hello and welcome back to another episode of the fit for Hiking podcast. This is your host, Brady, and if you are listening to this kind of in real time, we are right on the heels of a new year. We're kind of just coming out of that weird phase of like holiday after holiday. And the holidays were kind of weird this year because they were midweek. So the past few weeks, I feel like we've all just been working like 1 or 2 days. The rest of the time we've just been in like holiday mode. And now this is the first, you know, Monday, Tuesday of the new year where we're actually productive, hitting the ground running, and maybe you're finally starting to come out of that holiday fog. So I wanted to do a timely episode on New Year's resolutions. Why so many of them fail, and how we can stop setting New Year's resolutions that honestly just suck and don't set us up for success, which is why most of them end up failing and we end up quitting. One month in the average person only makes it a few weeks with their New Year's resolutions before quitting. And that is sad because clearly, if you're setting a New Year's resolution, it's something that matters to you. Most of the time, people's resolutions are something that have been their resolution year after year, right? It's something that's been on your brain for years that you want to change. And unfortunately, you just kind of get stuck in this holding pattern of making a New Year's resolution with really no foundation and no plan. So then you get a few weeks in and then you revert back to old habits, old patterns, and those feelings of motivation towards your New Year's resolutions fall by the wayside, and then you kind of just get stuck back in your same rut that you were in the last ten years, and you do the same stuff all year long. And then come December, you start thinking, okay, after the holidays are done, I'm going to get really serious about this, and this is the year I make changes. Repeat cycle, right? And that is so frustrating. I really feel like there's fewer few things in life that are more frustrating than feeling stuck and looking back and saying, I am still struggling with the exact same stuff this January that I was. January of 24. January of 23, January of 22. Not much has actually changed. My habits kind of look the same, so my outcomes look the same. So if you are wanting to break this pattern and really actually see some life transformation this year and look back in January of 2026 and say, holy crap, I did it. I actually see so many changes in myself that I wanted to see, and I quit these poor habits and I establish these better habits. Then this is the episode for you. So most New Year's resolutions really don't work because you're setting generic and idealistic goals with no actual process to get you there. Things like eat healthier, lose weight, get fitter, get stronger, cut out sugar. These are very generic resolutions. Yet that is honestly what most people think of when they think of like health or fitness based year's resolutions. I'm going to lose weight. I'm going to go to the gym more. I'm going to get fitter. I'm going to eat better. These are the the most vague statements, though, and when we don't have any sort of plan or habit process to back these up, that's when we don't see success. We don't follow through because these are just wish lists, right? These are just like, I would like to lose weight. Great. But how do we actually get there? Um, so how are you actually planning to implement steps necessary to achieve your goals? And here's how we can set goals in 2025 that will actually translate to behavior change, which leads to life transformation, right? Our habits, our daily decisions are what changes what our weeks look like, which is what changes what hour months look like, which is what changes our year, our life, our total outlook on everything. So we have to start with the day to day and the little things that add up to the big things over time. So let's talk about what setting smart fitness goals actually looks like. And I know that this might feel like you are back in school getting a school lesson. That seems just silly. Um, but trust me on this. The difference between these generic goals and setting Smart goals could be the difference between you actually following through and having major breakthroughs in your health and fitness journey this year. So what is a Smart goal? Smart stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and Time Bound. So I'm going to go through each of those and provide an example with um kind of a running of five k emphasis. That's our example point okay. So specific a goal should be clear and well-defined. So avoiding vague objectives like getting fit losing weight. Instead focus on a specific action or outcome. Example would be I want to run A5K race without stopping okay. Next is measurable. So you need to be able to track your progress. Otherwise you're going to have no idea how far you've come. So include numbers or concrete milestones to gauge how far you've come along the way. Example being I want to increase my squat max by £20. If we want to stick with the the running, then we could say I want to run an average of a 12 minute mile across the five K. Achievable. Your goals should be realistic taking into account your current fitness level, time commitment, any potential barriers like injuries or a busy schedule, having little kiddos, uh, you know, just life stuff. You have to take that into consideration when we just rattle off these idealistic things. It's kind of like saying, I want to be a billionaire and not having a plan of how you are going to get there, right? It's kind of just silly and idealistic. So we have to be realistic about what are some of the the barriers in your life that you're going to have to troubleshoot along the way. So it should feel challenging but not impossible, right? We don't want to set ourselves up for failure right out of the gate. Example would be I will run three times per week, gradually increasing my distance by half a mile each week until I can run the five K without stopping. Okay, so first we identified I want to run A5K without stopping. Then we identified that ideally I'd like my mile time to be this this many minutes per mile. When I am able to run my five K. Now we set up. How are we going to make this achievable? Well, I'm going to run three times per week, gradually increasing the distance by half a mile. We're getting really specific until I can run five K without stopping. Next one is relevant, so ensure your goal is aligned with your long term fitness or personal health objectives. So it should really resonate with your interests and motivate you. If it's if it feels just like something that you're saying that you want to do because it seems like something that you should do, but you have no intrinsic motivation to get you there, you really have no emotional tie to this goal. Then you're so much less likely to actually follow through. So it has to matter to you. It has to make a difference in your day to day life. There has to be something in your life that you are suffering from because you are unable to do this, because of this negative habit, because of this health condition. That's because of certain habits in your life, right? Needs to be relevant and inspiring to you. So example would be I want to improve my cardiovascular fitness to keep up with my kids when we go on hikes. And that's why you want to get into the running habit. Um, and that's, that's a really great one. Like, I find that a lot of potential clients that I talk to on calls, um, are getting to the point where they're like, I have no energy or strength to even just, like, go on long walks with my kids, let alone hikes where I'm having to carry them or carry a bunch of stuff. And I want to be able to say yes to these opportunities. So when you notice that, like, this area of my life is actually hurting and hindering me, that becomes very motivating. And the final part of the Smart goal equation is time bound. Every goal should have a deadline to keep you motivated and on track, and having a target date really helps prevent procrastination. If we have no checkpoint where we're kind of reevaluating, then we can kind of just have this ambiguous goal. If I'd like to lose weight, I can't even tell you how many people I talked to that have wanted to lose weight for literally two decades or something like that. Like this. This goal has been something for them on their mind for five, ten, 20 years. They're always kind of trying to lose weight but not really doing anything about it. So it's just this arbitrary goal with no time sensitivity. So there's really no urgency to take action, right? So an example with keeping up with our five K theme would be I will run my first five K in three months. So you're setting a date. You're booking the race. You're committing yourself to this process and you're saying okay I'm doing this. This is happening in three months, so I gotta get it in gear. So putting it all together a Smart goal Example. Kind of pulling this all full circle would be I will run three times per week, gradually increasing my distance by half a mile each week, and aim to run A5K without stopping in three months. That is a perfect example of a super specific, measurable, time sensitive goal that you can start to form around what you would like to achieve for the new year. Okay, this gives you some serious direction. This gives you an action plan. When we just have a vague goal with no action plan, we are really setting ourselves up to do a whole lot of nothing because we look at that big overarching goal and maybe yours is I want to be a runner, okay, but where do you start to get yourself there? Because otherwise you are going to fall back into default patterns. We all do it. We're so much more comfortable with the habits we know, even if they're not what's really serving us or where we want to be long term, we're way more likely to go back to the patterns that we are comfortable with, right? So in order to break those patterns, you need something specific and a game plan that's going to break that up. So a couple of tips for how to implement this in the new year. One is to really just get introspective about one. What is it that you really want to see different in your life by this time next year? You need to get serious about finding that intrinsic motivation. What were the parts of your life this year that really felt crappy? Where were you just hindering yourself getting in your own way? What outcomes were you not pleased with that you have control over? And we have control over a whole lot more than we think sometimes. So take some responsibility and think, okay, what would I like to change and see different in the new year? That really was just a low point or kind of this constant negative in my life over the past year. Maybe it's way longer than that. Maybe you've been struggling with certain health symptoms for ten years because of a root thing of needing to lose weight, or not having any sort of health practices for yourself not working out. So you just kind of feel sluggish and lethargic all the time, right? So one, you really got to get introspective and also look at what daily habits are contributing to these negative outcomes in your life and what needs to change then. So for every maybe negative thing that you're seeing in your in your day to day, how can you replace that with a positive thing that's going to move you in the right direction? Because when all we do is remove habits. We're really not going to stick with those things long term. We have to replace them with positive things that we can fit into our life, that we can instill those new habits. Okay, that's kind of how our brains work. We can't just pull things out. We need to replace. So in order to get to your big overarching annual goal, maybe your goal is that you want to lose weight. But how do we break down our daily habits? To say, what are the things that I'm doing on a day to day basis that are hindering my weight loss goal, and how can I replace those with better habits? So if we're sticking with the example of losing weight, let's look at what some Smart goals would be associated with this generic goal. Because it's okay to have a kind of generic, big overarching goal, but we don't want to leave it there. We want to break it down. So here are some small daily action items that would help contribute to your goal of weight loss. Strength. Train three times a week for 30 minutes per session for the next three months. Okay, so now we have a game plan from the exercise standpoint. Walk for 20 minutes four times a week on lunch breaks for the next six months. And these are just arbitrary time frames. Okay, so this will can change based on like what you feel like is realistic for you. And that's kind of your reevaluation point. It doesn't have to stop there. Maybe you strength train three times a week for the next three months, and then you reevaluate and say, okay, I did that consistently. Now can I add or am I seeing the results that I want to see from just the three times? Um, another example would be include one serving of veggies and one serving of fruits each day for the next month. Just getting in that habit of eating more phytonutrients and nutrient dense food. One serving of veggies and fruits each day. Uh, being in beginning a bedtime routine at 9 p.m. that includes XYZ, whatever that looks like for you, that helps you relax. It helps you wind down your nervous system. Um, each weekday evening and lights out by 10 p.m. that's an example of something that's going to help kind of balance out your circadian rhythm, help with sleep quality, help with your energy the next day, which will contribute to your overall health and weight loss goal. Um, and then the final one would be to hike two times a month. For at least four miles for the entire year. Okay, so if you're someone who wants to work on your health, maybe you also have some hiking goals. That's a lot of our listeners. That's a lot of the ladies that come into our Mountain Metabolic coaching program. Um, so setting a hiking goal even, um, sometimes it's hard to prioritize that if you if it isn't top of mind and you're not kind of setting aside that time to say, okay, I'm going to do this two times a month. So when am I doing it? This month. Look at your calendar, pick your days, schedule it out because otherwise your weekends can fill up fast, right? So those are some Smart goals that would be associated with your general goal of losing weight. All right. Number two here would be to be realistic. If you've been doing next to nothing for your health, don't come in hot with like ten Smart goals for each day. Okay. This is a recipe for overwhelm, which almost always just leads to us quitting. When we feel overwhelmed, when we feel like we can't take on what we're trying to do and life happens, we have a crazy busy week. So then suddenly all these ten Smart goals that you made for yourself per day are like super unrealistic and you're thinking, Holy crap, there's no way I'm going to be able to drink my 100oz of water, get my workout in, walk for an hour. Um, you know, eat five portions of protein, do this, do this, do this, do this. The list can go on and on, right? If we're if we get too overly ambitious right out of the gate, that's when we set all these goals. And they might be great goals, but if they're not realistic and you can't implement them consistently, then they're not good goals for you. So if you are kind of at a starting point, starting at square one. I would say pick 2 to 3 and start small, because it's so much better to reevaluate after a given time frame and build from there, than to try to start working out six days a week and then you're so sore you can't even sit down on the toilet, and you're hating your life and you're regretting your choice, and then you just quit. Okay, so start with what's manageable and build on that foundation over time. I promise it's not as exciting as it is to, like, start this thing where you're working out twice a day, like it's 75, hard and coming in hot with like, all of these things you have to do every day. But the burnout rate is going to be way, way less, and you're so much more likely to actually continue it. Most people who finish 75 hard or some of these like, you know, really, really intense programs do not continue those habits afterward because they're not realistic for everyday life. You're probably not going to do two workouts a day, every single day, 75 days straight, for the rest of your year. That's not realistic or even healthy. Okay, so you've got to be realistic with it from the start to set yourself up with a healthy foundation. Um, number three is to trust in the compound effect. So what you're changing may seem small day to day. Again, it might not seem super sexy, super exciting. It's these small, tiny things, but consistent small actions over time really do lead to the biggest results because we can be consistent with them. Like I was saying before, when we set these unrealistic goals were so much less likely to be consistent over time. And consistency is the secret sauce for life change and transformation. So how do we be consistent? We trust that these compounding effects of these small decisions will play out over time. You have to be patient, though, and focus on the process versus the daily progress. If you're just obsessing over your progress, your progress, your progress, then you need to get obsessed with the process instead, because the process is what's going to deliver you the results and the progress. When all you're thinking about is I'm not seeing the results, I'm not seeing the results, then you are not in the right headspace for like, a lifelong sustainable change. Number four is measuring your progress. Having a tangible way to see if you are actually making progress along the way. If after a few months, you're kind of looking back and you're really not seeing a ton of progress, you have to look at, am I really following these process goals that I laid out for myself and consistently? Um, because I think oftentimes we think we're consistent, and then we look at the reality of our compliance to something, and maybe we're doing those things like 60 to 70% of the time. And we're expecting A-plus results from a C or D or F efforts. And I know that sounds a little bit harsh, but a lot of times we kind of need that reality check of, oh, I'm expecting like a super fast rate of fat loss and perfect results and like is super lean body, but I'm eating a C effort, you know, nutrition regimen. I am working out with like 75% compliance to my program, getting out for my walks like 50% of the time. Right. You see where I'm going with this? Those numbers are not that good. You're not being consistent enough to expect those types of results. So you really got to gauge your expectations based on how hard you're working and how consistent you're being. And measuring that is an important part of that process. Number five. If the compliance is not there, hire some accountability. You got to be honest with yourself at a certain point, because we can lay out the most amazing Smart goals in the world. But if you're still not going to follow through with these tangible daily action items without having some accountability, then you gotta you gotta hire some accountability. Oftentimes, just having a random person who you say, let's be accountability buddies, but you guys don't actually check in with each other in a thorough way. You don't actually troubleshoot where things breaking down. You know, if someone's not really holding you accountable, then it's probably not going to be that productive. And I say this a lot on this podcast, but it's so true. When you pay, you pay attention. And this goes for pretty much anything. When we get something for free, we tend to not value it. Therefore we don't really implement. We don't really take it seriously. We don't value the knowledge or the the whatever it is. Right? Um, so if we aren't investing in results, we will likely show up and care a lot less. It's just human nature. And personally I can say like the best results that I've ever seen in different areas of personal development or education, things in my life came from making kind of big and scary investments. And I don't say that lightly because I have made investments in my business, um, to further my education and knowledge and business development and times when I really did not have money to spare. And we were going through like some pretty tough financial things. Um, and I've not regretted it at all, because once I actually invested in the right things, I started implementing. I started making necessary changes and doing things that I wouldn't have otherwise done on my own had I just, like, listen to certain things on a podcast or read about it on a free blog, right? I had a coach who was checking in with me all the time on my progress and a process that I was following. It makes a difference. Um, and doing the same thing over and over, while expecting a new result is the definition of insanity. I think about that all the time in my own behavior, and I think, where am I doing that? Am I doing that in my health practices? Am I doing that in these certain habits? My personal development, business development? Um, if you're not willing to try something new, then you're probably not that serious about your goal. And that's just the reality. And I had to have that conversation with myself when I made some of those big investments. So even if it's just for a small season, investing in yourself, getting it on the right track until you can implement these things on your own because it's not like you're going to need outside accountability forever. Most of the time we need someone to help us figure out where are we breaking down mentally, where we aren't following through because at that point you have the information, you have the plan, but you don't have the follow through. And that's what we need to focus on. You know, the perfect plan and all of the knowledge. And if you don't have the follow through, it doesn't matter at all. Okay, so we have covered setting Smart goals how to actually set goals that will help you achieve new results in the new year, and stop setting sucky goals and top tips for what this looks like and how you can translate this to your real life right now. So I hope that you guys have found this helpful as we are looking into the new year. Um, you know, I don't even set these big New Year's resolutions anymore. Really? Because I find that they're not that productive for me, and I like breaking them down into these Smart goals instead to get me to the place where I want to be in three months, six months, one year. So I hope that this can help you do the same. Um, if you guys are liking the show, you can share the love by sharing it with other people on social media, texting episodes to people that you think it might be helpful for. Um, that is really the most helpful thing you can do for me as the host. If you appreciate the show, you can show that appreciation through sharing it with other people. Word of mouth is really the best way for this podcast to spread. Also, leaving ratings and reviews. That is another really, really helpful way to show your support. If you have gotten a lot of value out of this show. So thank you again for being here today and I will chat with you in the next episode. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the fit for hiking podcast. As always, I hope it leaves you feeling inspired and informed on how to take your health and adventure into your own hands. For more content like this, be sure to follow along with my daily posts at Ponytail Underscore. On a trail that's ponytail underscore on a trail. You can also stay up to date on my new episodes being released at Fit Underscore for hiking, and find more free resources at Pony Tail on a trail.com. Happy and healthy trails.