Hows the New Year Resolution Going?

Well Christmas has come and gone. We diligently bought our pressies, watched the telly and followed the ads as much as we followed the telly. And this got me thinking. According to the ads in December the ONLY thing you should be thinking about is Christmas. You must be throwing a party and buying your 3 items for a fiver. You must be frantically panic buying everything because the shops will be shut for 24 hours (like we love the supermarket so much we go every day!) Woe betide the person that has chosen to book a holiday in December, oh no. If you have you are not following the telly close enough. Because it’s not until January that you are allowed to book a holiday, buy a sofa or consider redecorating and god forbid you should consider a diet or quitting smoking in December, no that HAS to be done in January and ask myself WHY?

Does this not create a ridiculous level pressure on our aims for ourselves before we have even started? Imagine if on your child’s first day at school you said “right study hard and don’t muck around because everything you do for the rest of your life is dependent on what you do now” WOW pressure. So why do we do this to ourselves with the dreaded new year’s resolutions?
Yes we have over indulged for near on two weeks but its only two weeks out of 52. Surely life is about balance. I am not suggesting that once a month you should eat & drink enough calories for a small village in Essex, but if you start a new goal with two weeks of guilt I don’t fancy your chances. Ask yourself did you have a good time? If so don’t worry about it. Guilt will scupper any plans for success before you have even dug your scales out if weight loss is your goal.
You need to start from this very second in time. Ignore every other occasion that you have attempted to succeed at your goal. You can choose to do things differently this time with lasting results. A famous Coach said “to continue to do what you have always done and to expect different results is madness” So what will you do differently to get what you want?
Here are a few tips.
- Are you doing this because YOU want to? There is so much input from the media it’s hard to remember to look and feel how we want and not how the latest celebs do. If you are trying to change because of an external influence, trust me it won’t last. The only way to get something you really want is to want it from the inside. You may even find it’s not about changing something about yourself but about changing an attitude about yourself.
- Don’t just say my goal is to not do this. For it to become a reality you have to give your brain a new image to aim for. For instance Instead of “I will not smoke any more” think “I am a non smoker”
- Get specific with your goals. Saying “I want to lose weight” is not enough. “I want to lose 5 pound by the end of January” Gives you boundaries to your goal. But remember to keep it realistic. An unrealistic goal will put too much pressure on you and at the first hurdle you will feel like a failure.
- Before you even reach a hurdle think right now “What will I do to get over any hurdle?” “Who could support me?” And try to accept if a goal is worth achieving its worth persisting with.
- Don’t waste your energy on storing up guilt. It’s done its gone, “What will you do different next time?”
- How will you know when you have reached your target? Imagine right now. The more you can visualise what you want and role play it in your mind the more positive reinforcement you are giving yourself to achieve it.
- Lastly a blatant plug about life coaching. The above is just a taster of some of the new ways of thinking that you can introduce to help you shape your life the way that you would like to. Coaching is used by people from all walks of life to ensure that you are working towards making your life a happy, enjoyable and successful one whatever and how ever you choose to be.
- Good Luck!