New Year, New You?
I am still in disbelief that we are living in 2018. I am still writing 2012 on everything and have an irrational fear of Y2K looming over my head. Note: if you don’t know what Y2K is, please don’t email me asking what it is. It only makes me feel even more like an ancient dinosaur.
Back to us living in a time where we honestly believed we would have time travel and cool Jetson type vehicles. Every year that ticks by I keep seeing articles, post and memes talking about “New Year, New You.” Like what is this really supposed to mean? So at the stroke of midnight on January 31st, I am supposed to transform into a whole different version of myself? I’m going to quit all of my bad habits, start living a completely different life style and become the non nail biting, no more four letter using, vision of health and wellness with a fur free spotless home? And all because the date on the calendar changed? Well someone pull the magic wand out of my butt and make that happen right now cause in the none of your business amount of years that I have been on planet Earth, my way of living has NEVER changed because we moved into another year.
It wasn’t until I stopped putting off everything I wanted to do until the first day of the new year and started making changes on random Tuesdays at 4:32 pm was it that I actually reached more goals.
The thing that I hate more than anything, as a trainer and as a human being with a brain, is hearing someone say that they will start eating better after the Holidays. Ok, so you have 10 pounds to lose and instead of making better choices during the Holidays, you would rather gorge yourself with ALL THE FOOD AND DRINKS for weeks so that once the new year hits you now have 25 pounds to lose. Huh? So pushing yourself further from your goal and making it harder to achieve it better than pushing yourself away from the table? OK, that is NOT OK.
New Year, New You or New Day, Better You?
So, in my opinion, revamping your entire existence on January 1 is a horrible idea and sounds like torture for people who steal kittens. Instead of doing what everyone in American tries (and fails at horribly) every year, why don’t you try to do things a little differently. God willing, you have a LONG TIME left on this planet so why make yourself crazy by trying to reach 900 goals at once when you can work at being a rockstar reaching one goal at a time. I once heard a quote saying:
“You can be good at lots of things or you can be GREAT at one thing.”
Think about it…..
When you are trying to do a few things at a time, you only have so much time to do them and you can do them well. But when you do one thing at a time, you can have the focus, drive and attention to do it with all of your heart.
This month, let’s take ONE GOAL and make that your focus. What? Only ONE GOAL? Yep. You read that right. Studies show that it takes 2 weeks to make a habit stick, but in my experience, it takes at least 1 month to make it a part of your lifestyle. More times that I can count I have picked a goal (always to stretch more). At the 2 week mark I feel like I could take over the stretching world and actually contemplate taking up yoga. But a few days later the “newness” of my newfound passion kind of wears off and before I know it I am as tight as a rubber band again because I forgot to stretch for 5 days in a row. (NOTE: I don’t actually forget. To be honest I start to play the “I will do it later” game and later never happens).
So here is where I hand out homework. However you want to do this – on your phone or the old fashioned way with a pen and paper – write down the following info:
Your goal
The day you will start
How you plan to achieve it
Possible things that might be road blocks for you
How you will deal with the road blocks
How you will reward yourself when you reach your goal (NOT FOOD)
Remember that this is your goal and you need to find a way that works for you to stay on track. And if you happen to veer off that track, DO NOT QUIT. One bad meal, one bad hour, one bad day or even one bad week is NOT a reason to give up. Learn from why it happened and KEEP MOVING FORWARD!!!!!
If you are looking for a fun and convenient way to keep track of your goals, nutrition, water intake and workouts, click here to get my 12 week journal.
