New Year’s Resolutions can be a challenging commitment, in fact, most of us place so much effort into making them…and it doesn’t just start on the first day of the year either, the process starts sometime around Halloween, continues into Thanksgiving and then bleeds into the myriad of December Holiday parties and events. Right? So that means we spend nearly 2 months eating, letting ourselves go and then trying to yank in the reigns in an effort to plan all the changes we’re going to make starting January 1. You know what we call this? Overload.
Here’s how it goes: when January finally arrives there is this immense self-inflicted feeling of pressure to succeed. It’s like we rip off the band aid that is bad nutrition and months of poor decisions and develop this kick of short-term endorphins. In fact, we do great the first week; even better the second. Then the third week arrives and we face the fact we’ve made a commitment. And then the last weeks arrive and our engine is wearing down at warp speed. And then it hits: February. Crash.
Those that plan out their weight loss journeys are often more successful than those that do not. Why? Because they plan it out – every detail. And when they plan with details they tend to stick to it (even when they allow themselves cheat days!). Really truly it’s about being mindful and owning the sum total of decisions we make along our weight loss journey. So then how do we find ultimate success? You ready? Ditch the resolutions and simply make a plan when you’re ready. It’s really that easy.
Planning is something that should come naturally to all of us. We plan events for our friends, our families…often down to the very last detail (I mean, who wants to forget to order the food for your mom’s 50th birthday?). Why do we make these plans? So that we don’t forget what needs to be done, and when we make these plans they often come with task lists. Our weight loss journey is not all that different. There are daily, weekly and even monthly tasks that we need to do – we’ll just call them goals. Tasks like: meal planning, getting your daily exercise, drinking plenty of fluids and getting enough sleep. Here’s a blog entry we’ve already published that should help remind you.
At the end of the day what’s really important are the decisions we make each and every day of the year. Not just one day, one week or one month. We already have enough pressure we place on ourselves on the daily we don’t need the “New Year’s Resolution” to add any more unwanted stress. Take it one day at a time and always focus on the bigger: long term success.
