January - It's not all doom and gloom

Cold, miserable, depressing… and that's before you've even left the house in the morning! January is definitely the year’s equivalent of a Monday morning with a horrendous hangover from the weekend... it just seems to drag on and on. However, January doesn't have to be the month we all hate, just like Monday morning doesn't have to be the bad guy every week; the days are slowly getting longer. Little by little we are getting a few extra minutes of daylight every day, meaning we are edging our way towards spring and ultimately summer, so that's something to look forward to - who doesn't love summer?!

As far as I'm concerned, January has too much pressure put on it. Massive New Year celebrations, the phrase “new year new me” flying about left, right and centre and not to mention the goals for the year... so many goals!

Now I'm a massive fan of setting ridiculously hard challenges for myself (Lands End to John O'Groats being one of them) but you've got to pick and choose your battles. Every year, I will write out a list of 6 - 10 goals I want to achieve over the next 12 months; some short term, some medium term and some long term. The easiest and most achievable goals will be my ‘January Goals’.

Get two or three in the bank early doors and get the motivation pumping! You can’t expect to lose two or three stone in a month - try two or three pounds to start with. It doesn't sound like a lot, but you're still achieving more than if you hadn't bothered at all.

Remember, if weight-loss is your goal then 1 pound a week equals 52 pounds a year... that's over 3 and a half stone! If strength gains are your aim, 500g increase every week on your lifts is an extra 26kg a year. Beaten your 10k run time by 1 second? You'll be nearly a whole minute quicker by 2021!

The take home message from this, I guess, is that I want you to make January your new favourite month of the year (or at least help you reframe it and hate it a little less). Set weekly goals, smash the absolute SHIT out of them and get the ball rolling for a massive year. Ryan