As the year rapidly comes
to an end, this is the perfect time to start thinking about a potential New
Year's resolution you can make for yourself. Before you scoff at the idea of
this popular yet often half-hearted promise to oneself, let's look at the
positives as to why making a resolution can help you accomplish an important
goal you may have.
The main reason why the
majority of resolutions made at New Years never come to fruition is because
most are not backed up with a specific plan of attack. Just stating you are
going to accomplish a goal is one thing, actually accomplishing this feat is an
entirely different can of worms and this is where most people get stuck.
In order to better your chances
of being successful with this New Year's resolution, list the specific steps
you'll need to take to come out on top. Whether your resolution is to quit
smoking, clean the house, learn how to play tennis, or lose weight, with all of
these goals there are certain steps that need to be taken in order to
accomplish the task.
Let's take the "clean
the house" resolution as an example. To clean an entire house, there will
be many rooms involved. Aside from the two main common areas of the kitchen and
the living room, you may have a den, hallways, storage spaces/closets,
bathrooms and bedrooms, and possibly a garage or attic/basement.
Do you seen how many
components comprise this one goal of cleaning the house? There are many nooks
and crannies that must be attended to if you truly want to accomplish the
resolution of cleaning the house. This is why it's vitally important you create
a specific plan detailing what you will need to do to help keep you focused on
track.
Once you create a plan of
what needs to be done to succeed with your New Year's resolution, you also need
to decide how and when you are going to implement this into your daily/weekly
life. For the cleaning the house resolution, maybe you will spend Wednesday
night from 8-10pm cleaning and on Sunday morning from 8-11am. These are the
times you will commit to your plan until it's accomplished.
However this may not be
possible with all resolutions and here's why.
With a New Year's
resolution to lose weight, you won't have the luxury of only eating healthy on
Wednesday night and Sunday morning like with cleaning the house. This will
definitely not help you reach your goal and you will likely fail in your weight
loss efforts.
The resolution to lose
weight will take much more of a daily effort to both stick with healthy
nutrition in appropriate portion sizes, along with getting some type of
exercise on a regular basis.
This undertaking is much
more complex and hands-on especially since there are often 4-7 moments each and
every day when we are confronted with an opportunity to eat and drink. Any one
of these moments presents the potential to overeat which essentially translates
to weight gain.
Therefore, if your
resolution this upcoming year is to lose weight and you are truly determined to
be successful this time, the plan you develop and how well you stick with it
will be the deciding factors if you do drop the excess weight.
In all honesty, the
toughest part of this entire process will likely be maintaining healthy eating
habits. Ditching the fast food and preparing home cooked meals take conscious
efforts and a willingness to try new things.
If you're proactive in
developing new healthy eating habits, controlling portion size, and get a
consistent form of exercise, there's no reason why you won't be able to succeed
with a New Year's resolution to lose weight.
No comments:
Post a Comment