I’ve put off going to the gym for more than the occasional yoga class or a quick play with the weights machines for a while now. I don’t hate the gym, but I don’t love it. As the weather has got colder and my legs slower, I made several promises with myself to do some intervals on the treadmill. And then I didn’t go.

After weeks of putting it off I addressed one small barrier to me going to the gym: I bought a new lock for the lockers.

It’s silly that forgetting the code to a £5 lock had meant I’d put off doing something that I wanted to do for weeks. I bought a replacement and, hey presto, the thought of going to the gym was a lot more appealing – not having to worry about leaving my phone and purse in the changing rooms while I showered disappeared and so did my resistance to going.

I wrote a long time ago about how, when I was travelling in Australia, I kept missing out on runs because my running shoes were at the bottom of my rucksack and it was a pain to unpack and pack again. I’m as slow at solving these sorts of blindingly obvious problems as I am at running right now. Once I caught on and moved my running kit to the top of the bag, I started having lots more adventures.

So if there’s a tip I would give you for 2015 it’s this: decide what you want to do and figure out what’s getting in the way of you doing it.

This thing you want to do might be big (cycle across several countries) or it might be smaller but still significant (go to the gym once a week). There’s going to be a few barriers between you and this thing – you forgot your gym padlock combination or you don’t have bike. And you’ll need to figure out a way through, over or round them.

In 2015 I’m planning to run two ultra marathons. I also plan to qualify at a PT and go on a big cycling adventure. Some of the barriers to me doing these things are training related: finding time to train, finding the motivation and identifying what’s stopping me from doing the training. Some of them are financial (race fees, course fees, equipment fees). Some of them are real barriers and some of them are perceived.

This week John Lewis kindly offered to send me something to help me towards my health and fitness goals in 2015. I asked for a Garmin Edge Touring GPS so that next summer I can cycle as far as I can across Europe in a week. Now there’s no excuse that I don’t know where I’m going, all I need to do is get back on the bike and pedal.

John Lewis sent me the Garmin Edge Touring GPS  for free.