Change Your Approach and Succeed with Your New Year's Resolutions. It's Not Too Late.

Happy New Year all!  I love this time of year:  A time to reflect on the past, a time to look to the future, a time to make change and energize the present.

I'm not a life coach, but I want to offer you some great advice to make sure you succeed with your resolutions and goals while making awesome change this year.  You can do it!  Read on!

The key to a successful resolution is all in your approach.  This entails your intentions and the perception of yourself among other things.  Unfortunately, many have not learned how to create a successful approach towards reaching their goals.  We are over saturated with poor advice coming from every facet of media, i.e. television, films, web articles, magazines at the grocery store check out, etc.

I often find you learn best from your own failures.  Our society and media often portray failures as a negative thing.  Our exposure to this can create a fear of failure that discourages people from trying something new.  FORGET all of that right NOW.  Failure is a great thing!  It makes success feel greater!  And as long as we can learn from failure, it is always positive.  Michael Jordan would agree.  Read some of his quotes on failure.

We're gonna learn how to make a successful resolution approach by breaking down a failed approach to one of the most common resolutions every year:  I WANT TO LOSE WEIGHT.

Tip 1:

How you phrase your resolution and every single word of your resolution is VERY IMPORTANT.  Empower yourself with your word choice.

When you study your words carefully, they describe your intentions and self perception along with your attitude of whether or not you think you will succeed.  You must STOP wanting and trying and START willing and being.  Although it's still not the best approach, you can improve the above resolution by changing the words to:  I WILL LOSE WEIGHT.

I recently read a very common resolution from a woman via Twitter/Facebook:  I want to lose 10 lbs this year.  This could possibly be a worse choice of phrasing for a similar goal.

Tip 2:

Make a concrete resolution that has tangible steps and goals that you can possibly see or measure.  Do not phrase your resolution with abstract words or ideas.

The idea of losing 10 lbs is somewhat abstract.  Sure, you can measure 10 lbs.  But you really don't know what the loss of 10 lbs is gonna look like.  And why 10 lbs?  Why not just a few pounds.  You can lose a few pounds by fasting without food and water for a couple days.  You may be severely dehydrated but you reached your goal right?  This is logical but sounds crazy.  It's crazy because you lost a few pounds, you succeeded with your resolution, and yet you still don't feel right.  Maybe it's because you're dehydrated now, or you forgot why you made this resolution in the first place, or the result doesn't match your original intention.

Tip 3:

Ask yourself, really, why are you making this resolution in the first place.  The why will help locate and describe your intention: Your reasons and actions for making change.

People often fail at resolutions when their intentions are misguided due to negative feelings, attitudes, and a negative perception of themselves.

For example, I'm going to guess that one reason you might make a resolution to lose 10 lbs is because you're not feeling happy with your body image.  This feeling may have come from self destructive media that portrays celebrities, athletes and skewed versions of health, beauty, and perfection.  Negative feelings of self perception often result from this media exposure.  Although these feelings are not good for you, they're really good for an economy where people want to make money off you by selling you gym memberships, athletic products, food and supplements, 'beauty' products, and a host of other things that, most often, do not make you any healthier or feel any better.

Tip 4:

Make your resolution about YOU and ONLY YOU.  Although it may have a positive ripple effect on others, you should be the primary one to feel the success of YOUR resolution and no one else.

Now, you're starting to realize that your intention to lose 10 lbs was not to look better for anyone else because you don't really care about them.  YOU CARE ABOUT YOURSELF!  

Tip 5:

Tell yourself that you LOVE and RESPECT yourself and THANK yourself for this love and respect.  Say it in the mirror. Say it out loud.  Say it all the time.

You must tell yourself, "I love you."  If you think it's not true, then you're letting the negativity of media, others, and your own self doubt speak for you.  Saying it is the first step to believing it and when you believe it, you will be empowered to create the change you want within yourself and the world.

Tip 6:

While making decisions, remember that you love and respect yourself.

You care about yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.  Your love and respect of yourself will promote a healthy mind and body by influencing your decisions.  You realize that the earlier resolution to lose 10 lbs is actually not about losing weight.  It's about caring for yourself, primarily the physical.  It's about creating a healthy body that you love.  It's about empowering your body and enjoying your body which is only one part of enjoying yourself.  When you enjoy yourself, that energy radiates to others.  It's positive.  It's beautiful.  It's attractive.  It will most likely attract more positivity.

Physical health is not a secret.  However, with the great amount of poor and negative marketing and misinformation today, it may seem that way.

Physical health is comprised of 3 core ingredients:

-Good Nutrition

-Good Exercise

-Good Sleep

Obtaining great physical health involves a healthy balance of these components.  When thinking of balance and health, remember this:  Everything in moderation is NOT necessarily healthy.  But, everything healthful in moderation, IS healthy.

Now that we have clarified our intentions in a positive and healthy way, we can now rephrase and create new successful resolutions and approaches that will likely yield the same result to the original resolution: I want to lose weight.

Example:

I will love myself and my body.  I will take care of my health with proper nutrition, exercise, and sleep.

This resolution has a positive intention and message that you can remind yourself of everyday.  You will likely empower yourself and reach success with this resolution.  If you use the old resolution and you remind yourself everyday that you want to lose weight, it will likely promote negative feelings of body image which will hurt more then help you.

Again:

I will love myself and my body.  I will take care of my health with proper nutrition, exercise, and sleep.

This resolution also provides direction for creating sub-resolutions and small steps towards your health success: nutrition, exercise, and sleep.

Some examples of sub-resolutions:

-I will eat a fruit or vegetable I've never tried before (every week).

-I will check out a book from the library each week about nutrition.

-On Sundays: I will wake up without an alarm clock.  I will not do any work.  I will rest.

-I will join a recreation sports team, meet new people, and have fun.

-I will dance in my room or outside for 15 minutes a day.

Tip 7:

Make your resolution FUN!

If you make your resolution or sub-resolutions fun, you've already succeeded.  This is especially important for exercise.  Many people who make resolutions to lose weight also dread exercise.  If that's the case, you need to make it fun!  Or make it a game.  Get creative.  If you're a theatrical person, maybe find a rabbit costume to wear along with a friend who will wear a turtle costume.  Chase each other around town.  Perhaps if the turtle wins, the rabbit must make them a healthy lunch.  You will be exercising, having fun, and spreading laughter and joy to others while indirectly reaching your goal to lose weight.  But again, remember that the goal should not be to lose weight, but to love and care for yourself and your body.

Tip 8:

YOU are ultimately responsible for YOUR OWN HAPPINESS.  No one else.

Be conscious of the decisions you make regarding your health and know that you are responsible for the results.  You have the power to make better and better decisions everyday.  Since you are establishing a love and respect for yourself, it is likely that you will automatically make better decisions which will likely result in improved health and an improved sense of self.

Tip 9:

When approaching your resolutions: Always be positive, and never be negative.  Congratulate yourself on your successes while learning from and forgetting your failures.  Guilt must NEVER be considered when pursuing a goal or resolution.

This is very important on the day to day basis while pursuing a resolution.

Here's one common example: Say you made a healthy resolution and are achieving success.  You've joined a fun sports recreation team, you're exercising, you're learning about nutrition and preparing delicious healthy meals... then one day you breakdown and you try a little bit of junk food.  You feel like you failed.  You feel like you disrespected yourself.  You allow that negativity to sink in and then you don't care anymore.  Perhaps you forget that you care about yourself and you gorge for the rest of the day in bed on junk food while feeling sad.  You feel that it's hopeless.

You must remember that you have made a resolution to yourself and that you are making better decisions and getting better everyday.  That doesn't mean you're never going to make a bad decision.  Bad decisions happen.  They are natural and healthy when we learn from them and move forward.

Again, congratulate and support yourself on your good decisions.  Remember that you love yourself.  Remember your intention.  When you slip up, don't feel guilty and dwell on your bad decisions.  Move forward.  Get better and better.

Tip 10:

A resolution is a change.  A change of actions, thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, ideas...  Change is a transition that takes time.  Make sure to enjoy each moment of it!

Tip 11:

It's never too late.  Only seven days of the new year have passed.  It's nice to make resolutions at the beginning of a new year but really, you can make them whenever you want.

Congrats on reading thus far!  I wish you love, joy, and success while you empower yourself, better yourself, and make change with your resolutions.

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If any of this resonates with you, I always appreciate comments and feedback.  It's nice to know that I don't write these posts to an oblivious internet.