Katie Austin was photographed by James Macari in Montenegro.
This time of year can be extremely overwhelming in the face of everyone setting—and then trying to keep—their New Year’s resolutions. Before I go further, here’s a quick reminder to not compare your resolutions and progress with anyone else. Focus on you. Make sure you’re setting your goals out of LOVE for yourself.
Also, don’t be upset with yourself if you haven’t gotten started on your resolutions yet. I actually love to start a week or so into the new year because the first week should be about taking the time to reflect, organize and set your intentions. It’s never too late to start. Here is my step-by-step best advice:
1. Create a mantra.
“Approach the New Year with resolve to find the opportunities hidden in each new day.” —Michael Josephson
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Create a mantra for yourself that rings true to you and your future self. I love doing this because as time goes on in 2023, it’s a wonderful way to look back and remember why you started. Going back to that mantra should not only help motivate you, but also help you realize.
2. Set goals for the year.
As the year begins, one of the things I love to do is sit down and devote some real time to setting goals for the next year. Personally, I love setting goals that are specific and measurable so you can track your progress. Not only writing down your what, but also your why and how, giving you purpose and action.
Provide direction
Goals can give you direction, purpose and a destination to reach. A huge benefit of setting goals is understanding what’s most important to you, creating a timeline and measurements to achieve them.
Increase productivity
By having a guideline of the accomplishments you want to achieve in the future, you’re able to use your time more wisely and be more intentional. Monthly, quarterly and annual goals give you a target to shoot for and a measuring stick to track your progress daily, weekly and monthly.
Create accountability
Personally, I like to check in not only at the end of the year, but also monthly or even weekly to ensure that I’m being proactive about the goals I set out to achieve. But don’t be too harsh on yourself if things don’t always go to plan. Life happens and plans change—it’s totally O.K.!!
Higher levels of motivation
What I love about measurable goals is they give you a framework to see the progress you’re making. This builds momentum, motivation and excitement. When you see how far you’ve come towards your goal achievement, you’ll be even more motivated to keep going!
3. Slow down to speed up.
Give yourself grace. It’s O.K. to slow down, evaluate your life and implement your goals slowly. One thing at a time. You don’t have to get everything done at once. Slowing down also helps us focus and prioritize what’s working.
4. Set consistency in workouts.
Formulate a plan! One of my favorite ways to make sure I’m consistent with my fitness routine is to work out in the morning at the same designated time every day. After a while, it’ll effortlessly become a part of your morning routine and you won’t have to dread squeezing fitness in during or after a long, grueling day of work. Add it to your calendar if you need to help yourself plan the length of your workouts.
I have a challenge going on right now on the Katie Austin app. It involves 21 days of forming a daily habit with different realistic lifestyle tips and daily workouts. It’s the perfect plan to start off strong, no matter what level of fitness you’re at. (Plus, go there for hundreds of on-demand workout classes and healthy simple recipes!)
Grocery shopping can be so overwhelming sometimes, but here are 10 of my favorite tips to shop more efficiently and make the process much less daunting.
- Eat the colors of the rainbow in your produce.
- Shop the perimeter of the store—that’s where you’ll find the freshest ingredients.
- Be mindful of the antibiotics and hormones going into your proteins.
- Don’t be afraid to elevate your meals with sauces.
- Shop at a grocery store that has great quality supplements so you make sure you’re staying as healthy as you can without the extra trip.
- Don’t shop for groceries when you’re hungry. Make a list if you need to on your phone. The checklist option in notes is fantastic to make sure you get everything you need.
- It’s more than O.K. to shop in the frozen food aisle.
- Check the labels, just in case. It doesn’t hurt to know what ingredients you’re consuming.
- Use a reusable bag.
- Have fun!!
6. Prep your meals.
If you have a busy week ahead, meal prep is an amazing solution to eat healthy and be budget friendly. I’ve included some of my favorite recipes to meal prep that are easily adjustable to make larger or smaller quantities. They are full of flavor and packed with nutrients.
And if you like these meal options, feel free to check out 100-plus recipes on my site katieaustin.tv for more meal prep inspo!
7. Find a routine.
My biggest piece of advice is to start small to make sure you can hold yourself accountable. Drastically changing habits can easily lead to mental fatigue where you feel like the habits you want to implement are too hard to achieve.
Finding a routine that works for you can be life-changing. It makes it easy to stick to healthy eating and working out to be your lifestyle, not just a New Year’s fix. For example, find out what works for you the first 10 minutes of your morning.
8. Add, don’t subtract.
The usual resolutions tend to focus on negatives and what we can restrict ourselves on. Let’s change the perspective. Instead of telling yourself the things you want to remove from your life, think about what you want to add. I want to add in daily workouts, I want to add in positive self talk, I want to add a meal prep a week. This way, you’re focusing on positives to help motivate you.
9. Get out of your comfort zone.
At the start of each January we often think about embracing a “New Year, New Me” mentality, and realistically that’s not always attainable. Making changes is hard—it’s moving out of your current comfort zone and that can be extremely daunting sometimes. Getting out of your comfort zone doesn’t mean you need to upheave your entire life to become healthier or more successful.
You don’t suddenly need to change your entire diet, or cut spending all together, or fully give up things in your current lifestyle. Changes like this can be unsustainable, Making small changes still can break you out of your comfort zone and help you realistically achieve your goals or resolutions for the New Year!
Let’s crush 2023!
xx Katie
About the Series
Tune in every week and get tips to feel your best from Katie Austin herself. “I am beyond excited to announce the official launch of my weekly column in SI Swim, Katie’s Column. For those who don’t know me, I’m a fitness personality, creator of my own workout app (check it out here!) and host of my newly released Snapchat Originals and YouTube show called Healthy Hacks!! On top of that, I was a 2022 SI Swim ROOKIEEEEE!!!!” says Austin.
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