New Years Resolutions. Did you make any this year? I did. Mine was to eat healthier and work out more. Well here we are at day 3 in the new year and I am sitting here at lunch eating my Carmel popcorn that some of our clients sent us for the holidays–I guess that is what we can call EPIC FAIL! ugh..Seems like I am not alone in making resolutions and not following through with them. 75 percent of people maintain their goals through the first week, 71 percent through the first two weeks, 64 percent through the first month and 46 percent past six months.
No surprise the top resolutions for 2014 is exercising and weight loss per the Huffington Post. Now how can we stick to these promises to our selves and make them a habit in our lives? We have clients that have purchased personal swim spas for their homes to help them with their goals of getting healthy. Now with having a custom lap pool in their home, there is no need to make the extra effort to get to the gym and fight for a swim lane. Now this is a great solution to aid in the procrastination but obviously this is not going to work with everyones budgets.Here are a couple ideas that we have found that help keep those resolutions that are so hard to keep.
Find a well wisher: Having honest friends around that will help you be on track and perhaps someone else who also has the same goals such as a workout partner is a great way to keep you on task.
Pen it: Writing down your goals is good to see it in writing! How about putting in on your mirror so it is a morning, noon and night priority.
One at a time: Try to narrow down your resolutions down to one thing so you can concentrate all your efforts there. Having more than one may be too overwhelming.
Resolutions Chart: I got this one from the book I am currently reading The Happiness Project. The resolutions chart basically is a daily score keeper that will help you visually see where you are falling short.
Good habits are hard to form, just as bad habits are hard to break, so we mustn’t be hard on ourselves when we have a bad day. When we want to develop a habit like exercising or eating better it could take us over eight weeks of daily repetitions before the behavior becomes a habit. And, while research suggests that skipping single days isn’t detrimental in the long-term, it’s those early repetitions that give us the greatest boost in automatically.
Good luck with you your resolutions and here’s to a Happy 2014 and healthier tomorrow!
