It’s the time of year when people begin to contemplate their New Year’s resolutions.
“I’m going to lose weight.”
“I’m going to get organized.”
“I’m going to work out more.”
“I’m going to eat healthier.”
The possibilities are endless, unfortunately, the resolution aren’t. Most resolutions are abandoned by the end of January and the gym regulars can get their parking spaces back and have uninterrupted time in their favorite machine, while the rest of is beat ourselves up for once again not following through.
Instead of making a great big New Year’s resolutions, what if we just decide to take some of our good habits into the next year with us and leave some of the bad ones behind?
“My family eats dinner together most nights of the week.” Let’s take that habit into the new year.
“I eat fast food at least 4 nights a week.” Let’s leave that one behind.
“I go for a walk/do yoga/run/ go to the gym a few days a week.” Let’s hang on to that habit.
“I sit on the couch and binge watch TV/play video games/ surf YouTube etc. in my free time.” Let’s leave that one behind.
Look back and evaluate your life, what are the good things you already do? Start there. Take those habits with you and improve on them.
“I walk 3 days a week.” Why not make it 4 days?
See things in your life that you don’t like? Sometimes it’s hard to leave a habit behind cold turkey, but it’s easy in baby steps.
“I eat fast food 4 days a week.” Can you cut that down to 2 days?
Change is good, but it’s also hard. It seems that resolutions are drastic overhauls of our lives and that’s hard to do.
Before you make a drastic resolution, evaluate what habits you have that you want to take with you into 2018 and which ones you want to leave behind. We all have good habits to take and bad habits to leave behind.
Some keys to successfully taking some habits and leaving others behind are:
1. Make a plan for your resolution and stick to it as best as you can, but don’t beat yourself up if you mess up from time to time; nobody’s perfect. Change the plan when necessary.
2. Make it measurable. “I will eat a real fruit and a real vegetable every day” is much easier to track than “I will eat healthy.”
3. Make it attainable/realistic. You will not be able to safely or healthily run a marathon in 3 weeks time. (Unless you have already been training for it.) Probably not even a half marathon in that time.
4. Know why you are doing what you’ve chosen to do; your why is your motivation.
5. Have fun. Figure out how to make the habit fun and you’re more likely to stick with it.
These should be easy to do once you know what habits to take and which ones to leave.
Have fun, be safe and make good choices this New Year’s weekend!
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