resolution Archives - MuffinChanel

This post may contain affiliate links; all opinions are my own. See Disclosures here

Happy New Year! Time for a fresh start and new goals. So many people make unrealistic resolutions and get discouraged before they even start, but if you make the right kind of goals, you will be sure to achieve anything you set your mind to.

So how can you make sure your goals are attainable and ensure your success?

SMART goals! You might have heard of this concept in school or at work, but you can apply it to your personal goals as well. SMART is an acronym to help you define your objective in a way that sets you up for success.

What is a SMART goal?

Specific – get detailed about what you want to achieve
Measurable – quantify what success is/set up a method to measure progress
Achievable – how can you make your dream a reality? what needs to happen to reach your goal?
Realistic – be honest with yourself about how much work you are willing do do to reach your goals.
Timely – set up some time specific deadlines

These five factors can help you formulate goals that you can reach and feel proud about. Think about it, a lot of people say, “I’m going to start working out in January so I can lose weight.” How long does that resolution last? It depends on the person, of course, but the goal is so vague, it can be easy to rationalize and say, “I have done two workouts this week, so maybe I’ll just take the day off and start up again tomorrow.” One day off turns into two and it’s hard to get back on track.

Say instead, that you made a SMART goal about working out — “I’m going to do 4 workouts a week; 1 weight training, 1 yoga, and 2 running for at least 45 minutes each time so that I can do 50 pushups and run 5 miles by the end of the year. I’d like to be able to do at least 25 pushups and run 2.5 miles by July.” This goal is very SMART; it’s Specific about what these 4 workouts are going to be each week. The goals are Measurable and Timely — “50 pushups and 5 miles by the end of the year”. I know what I’m working towards and I know that I can make it if I keep up with my plan — Realistic and Achievable!

Set yourself up for success this year and make your resolutions SMART!

This post may contain affiliate links; all opinions are my own. See Disclosures here

The Nike+ Running App has gotten a recent update that now provides a “coaching” feature to help you train for your running goals. You know that I already love the Nike+ Running App, so I was excited for what this update could do to help me train for that half marathon I told you about back in November. The update helps you to train for a 5K, 10K, Half Marathon, or a Marathon each at either Beginner, Intermediate, or Advanced levels. You can select whatever skill level you want, but the App recommends a level for you based on your history of runs which is pretty neat. I selected the Half Marathon goal and was excited to get back on track with my running. I was definitely slacking during the holidays. The App recommended that I start at the Beginner level which I would have picked anyway. It was weird though, because it recommended the Beginner level when I selected the Half Marathon, but the Intermediate level with I clicked the full Marathon. After, I selected the race I was training for and what level I wanted, I was on my way to 12 weeks of training. I was curious to see what the “coaching” part was like. Was there audio feedback? A pre-run pep talk? I already knew about the run reminders, but what was the training program like?

Basically, the App tells you what your workout will consist of for each day of your training. You can click to see what it has in store for you each day. For my Half Marathon plan, it has me doing 58 runs over the course of 12 weeks. The first week is a Warm Up week with four days of running, two days of rest, and a day of cross training. There is no audio feedback with your coached workouts. 🙁 You just click the workout scheduled for that day and read what you’re supposed to do. If it is a running day, you can click Run from that page and run the way it instructs. After you complete the run, it will be marked complete. If it’s a cross-training or rest day, you have to go in and manually mark it as done.

I was really hoping for some audible feedback — more than just the usual “average pace” and “distance remaining” updates. Especially when one of the training days included 2 miles of fartleks. It would have been cool to have it tell me when to speed up/slow down without having to time myself and look down all the time. Those three minutes are very long when you’re trying to run at a faster pace.

Overall, I’m please with this update and don’t forget, this App is free! So awesome if you are training for something or just looking for a way to track your runs.