Robin Arzón.Photo:Brian King
Brian King
PEOPLE spoke toRobin Arzón, vice president/head instructor at Peloton and founder of Swagger Society, about why it’s so hard to stick to our goals, and what we can do to make it easier.
“We overcommit. We overestimate our ability to achieve certain resolutions. We don’t plan for challenges,” the athlete and fitness influencer, 42, explains. “Oftentimes, we’re making this New Year’s resolution when we’re feeling great or optimistic. But what happens when the alarm goes off at 6 a.m.? What happens when your kid gets sick or a work commitment comes up?”
She adds, “So when you notice that you fall off — which is human, more than 80% of people will — what are you going to do with that information?”
“Whether it’s January 12th or June 17th,” here are a few tips from Arzón for staying strong and sticking with your goals.
Robin Arzón.Brian King
Make your goals smaller
“You can have a big audacious goal, something that is a huge finish line for you. But to get there, take small, bite-sized achievable actions — I call them ‘nibbles of hustle’ — every single day. So if you’re trying to establish a reading habit, that’s like one page. We’re not talking about reading chapters a night or going to the gym all of a sudden now 10 hours a week. Someone might think, ‘Oh, well, if I’m not totally rosy about the outcome, isn’t that being negative?’ I actually think it’s being realistic and prepared.”
Understand your intentions
Stack your habits
“You want to incorporate habit stacking to the extent that you can. If you’re trying to drink more water, for example, put your water bottle next to your coffee machine and fill up that water bottle and start drinking it as your coffee is brewing. So there are ways we can layer existing habits and expand them a little bit to fold in new routines, new habits in the new year, anytime of year.”
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Robin Arzón.James Farrell
James Farrell
Eliminate points of friction
“Analyze the roadblocks. It’s setting out your clothes the night before. It’s ordering the groceries so they’re already in your cart when you know you’re going to be meal planning that week. It’s washing and cutting up vegetables as soon as you get home from the grocery store. These are the little things that often take under 10 minutes that you’re making a decision today to make tomorrow a little bit easier.”
“And the more consistently you’re making that choice, that’s when you have that neural repatterning where your mind now is knowing that those long-term goals are achievable even though it’s enchanted with the short-term rewards.”
“It’s actually not about motivation. You’re probablynotgoing to feel like it most days. So plan for the days that you don’t feel like it. How are you setting up a schedule or routine? What pieces need to be put into place for you to achieve that goal? And if it feels too overwhelming, then you need to scale it back and ask yourself, ‘What is one action that I could take in less than two minutes? Make it as simple as possible and really establish where you’re kind of tripping up and make your goals realistic."
Find a community of like-minded people
“I think community can be a huge, huge motivator. We see it every single day at Peloton. Surround yourself with like-minded folks. If you want to move more, surround yourself with movers. If you want to be financially literate, hang out with people who are good with their money. You really want to surround yourself as much as possible — even if it’s who you follow on social media — with folks whose default behavior is your desired outcome."
source: people.com
