With 2025 around the corner, so many people are excusing poor choices with the promise to themselves that on January 1st, they will finally get “back on the wagon” and start doing everything right. While I will never knock people for setting goals and wanting to become a better version of themselves, it’s important for people to understand the crucial fact that the more they delay the positive changes they want to make, the less likely they are to be successful when it comes time to be consistent with the superior habits.

Life Imitates Squatting

It can be a frightening thought, but the truth is, every minute we spend, action we take, and thought we linger with goes towards stacking the odds in favor of us and our goals or against. Whatever you rehearse becomes your new normal, and once a detrimental routine becomes habit, it’s much harder to walk it back and replace it with good habits.

You can think of any life action like a rep on a squat. If, from the start of your fitness journey, you put in crappy squat reps (half squat depth, knees quaking back and forth, lower spine hyperextending), you will get used to performing crappy squat reps. Once you realize that these sub-optimal reps are destroying your knees and back, it’s going to be a lot more difficult to swallow your pride, take some weight off the bar, and teach your body and brain to start performing the proper weight than if you had just started putting in good reps from the beginning. Every bad rep puts your further away from a healthy and strong squat, and every good rep that you reinforce gets you closer to squatting like a powerlifting champ.

In life as with squatting, the more we snooze our alarms, let weeks pass without working out, choose ultra-processed food over prepping high-quality meals, scroll on Instagram while we should be present with our family and friends, and watch mindless YouTube videos while we should be knocking out work tasks, the more we adjust to performing these habits. With every bad rep, the likelihood of making the better choice next time (even if you promise yourself you will do better next time) becomes less and less.

Perfect is the Enemy of Good

Part of the reason people struggle with this concept is that they think that the promise of a new day, new week, new year, etc. will come with stronger motivation. They think, If only I can have a perfect month or perfect year, I will be inspired keep up the “good streak” (or something along those lines). Since 2024 hasn’t been perfect and the streak is already “ruined,” the rest of the year is a wash. They can continue to put in bad reps, and it won’t matter once 2025 starts. Right?

Dead wrong. Holding your commitments to yourself is most important to do when things are not perfect. No matter how good you feel at the start of January, life will inevitably happen at some point in 2025 and you will get out of your routine for a few days. If, in 2024, you made the excuse of The streak is ruined, so what’s the point? then you will continue to make that excuse in 2025 and fail to hop back on track ASAP after the slip-up.

2024 Is Not Over

Now, if you’ve struggled in the past with sticking to your New Year’s resolutions and realize that you have displayed the attitude I described above, all is not lost. Here is what you can do to turn the tides now and set yourself up for success with your 2025 goals (or, your upcoming goals, depending on when you read this article).

1. Start something today. If it’s near the end of the day, do something small to prove to yourself that you will continue to act in your own best interest, even if the conditions are not perfect and even if you are not well-prepared to do so.
2. Don’t wait until Monday. Schedule in time tomorrow, and the next day, to continue acting on the habits and making the choices that will lead your closer to your goals. When you start to feel excuses rising in the back of your mind that tell you to wait until next week, remind yourself that excuses are lies and that you are capable of holding yourself accountable.
3. Last but not least, ditch the New Year’s resolutions. Just make resolutions. A resolution is “a firm decision to do or not to do something.” Whenever you decide you want to do a thing, just do the thing, new year or not.

Overall, I urge you not to hesitate to make the necessary changes in your life. If you have the mental clarity to know what needs to be different, you should immediately do everything in your power to think, act, and budget your time differently.

When your good routines and habits get thrown off track, have the mental flexibility and confidence in yourself to make adjustments and return to those habits right away.

Reinforce good reps as often as possible, and you will, soon enough, reap the rewards.