13 Million. That’s a big number, right?

That’s how many people make the New Year’s Resolution to get in shape. A steely resolve sweeps the country as we make a pledge.

This is our year. We’re really going to nail it this time.

In fact if you’ve ever joined a gym in January you’ll know getting on any pieces of equipment before March is like joining a Royal Rumble.

But three weeks into the new year, 7 million of us have given up.

Balls.

Here’s 5 things you can do make sure it’s not you!

1) Make yourself accountable

Very recently me and a bunch of PW members stripped down for what our awesome photographer, Laura at Cherry Red Photography calls a “Nakey calendar” to raise money for charity! Due to restrictions as to when we could get in the studio, from the time we’d decided to do it to the photos we had about 4 weeks.

Now for me, particularly given what I do, it’s very important I’m in the best shape I can be. Because I was being photographed stripped down to the bare essentials, I made damn sure when that date rolled around I’d stripped just as much fat running up to the day as I did clothes in front of the camera!

In fact the night before I was at a party. That night, while the people around me were chowing down on chips and knocking back the booze, I’d stopped taking on liquids after 8pm, and ate pre-prepared pasta and chicken out of tupperware.

Now, the point there isn’t that you necessarily need to be that hardcore on a night out, in fact if you can’t let your hair down regularly without consequences, then you’re doing it wrong! My point there is that if you’re stripping off for the camera, nothing will stop you from being in shape when you do!

So one thing you can do is book your “After” photo in advance with a professional. Get a date in your diary and commit to having your pic taken in your bathing suit or that killer dress you’ve been wanting to break out for ages but never had the figure and the confidence for.

Or you can do something even more simple like tell all your Facebook friends that you’re getting in shape and regularly post updates as to how you’re getting on.

Or something a couple of people I know have done which is VERY effective is to get an embarrassing picture or a “Before” picture in your bathing suit, send it to a trusted friend and give them specific instructions to release it to the world X amount of weeks after you start! That way you have two choices, you either get in shape so it doesn’t matter when they do, you can just go, “Yeah, look at me now beatches!”, or you suffer the humiliation!

One for the hardcore, but like I said, it’s VERY effective!

2) Map out your goals on a calendar

First up, set proper goals. Not fluffy ones. Know exactly what you’re going to achieve and in what time frame. And make it what the late Bob Safford called “Stretchingly realistic”. So basically, your goal should challenge you, but not be unattainable!

Not, “I want to lose a bit of weight and feel good”, make it, “I want to lose 10lbs and drop a clothes size by February 1st”

Achievable, specific, but still challenging enough that you’ll have to work for it!

Then mark it on a calendar. A wall chart type calendar is good for this. Then every day running up to it, draw two digonal lines at the end of the day. Bottom-left to top-right if you did your workout that day, and top-left to bottom-right if you stuck to your eating plan that day.

By time you get to your deadline date, you want to have the majority of days with a big cross in them.

This works well in two ways. Firstly you’re specifically working one day at a time towards a goal day, breaking your goal up into achievable micro-goals  – all you have to do that day is workout and stick to your eating plan and every day you do, it’s a win! – and now you can physically see progress in front of you on a day to day basis.

It’s constant positive motivation. Each little cross is you one step closer to awesome.

3) Buddy up

We don’t like to be alone. Hell, even misery likes company! And when you’re trying to reach a goal, there’s a whole huge pile of evidence that shows working with one or more like minded people can seriously give your results a kick up the backside.

Even in a very recent study where the participants were split into 3 groups, those that exercised with a partner lasted 1.8 times longer, and those who were paired with a partner who was picked as they were slightly better than the participant lasted over twice as long!

So if you want to do well, get a few friends with similar goals, or better yet, find a friend or two who have already got in much better or awesome shape.

You’ll work harder to keep up!

4) Get sponsored

Charity and fundraising is a huge motivation for us. We run miles, scale mountains, go sober, sit in baths full of Baked Beans all to help a good cause.

Uber success and man-machine Kev got sponsored a pound for every pound he lost, and as he was bearing down on his 5th stone (70 pounds) of weight loss, he actually had to stop taking money off of people because it was costing them too much!

Getting sponsored is not only a great motivator to keep you going, but a good way to turn something that benefits you personally in so many ways into something that benefits lots of people.

5) Join a competition

For years the debate has raged as to what works better, carrot or stick. A couple of years back I started introducing challenges and competitions into my member’s routines, and we started getting the best results I’ve seen.

The competition worked in a few ways. As well as having teams to push, support, and motivate you, I dangled a big ol’ carrot in front of everyone’s face which has ranged from an iPad to £5,000 worth of training. And what happened?

Well, like I said, we started seeing the best results to date. In  the last competition we were seeing:

• Fat losses of over a stone in only 28 days (less than a month)!
• Upwards of 4 inches dropping from people’s waistline!
• Body fat percent drops of up to 4 1/2 %!

It was quite incredible. Who thought carrots were so powerful?

Now we have grand prizes, prizes for the top 3, prizes for the highest point scorer, prizes for the winning team… There’s more carrots than in Aunt Sally’s first aid kit! (Worzel Gummidge? Scarecrow? No? Too obscure…? Oh well!)

Our next challenge kicks off this Monday, so if you want accountability, team support, guidance, and carrots worth over £10,000, you can register here:

28-Day Body Transformation Challenge

And remember:

“This is your year. You’re going to nail it this time.”

Make that the truth!