Many of us believe the New Year is a magical time of starting over and turning over a new leaf and starting fresh. New Year new me right? While I appreciate the symbolism of it all, the New Year has nothing to do with the success or failure of your resolutions. That falls squarely on your shoulders.
When I was young, I used to dig deep and come up with these life-altering New Year resolutions that would change everything and make me this amazing, wonderful, spectacular person. Yet, no matter how fantastic they were, I was never able to keep them up. As it turns out, relying purely on that fresh and exciting New Year motivation to get me through the entire year was entirely and utterly unrealistic.
What IS realistic is making and follow through on a plan. Personally, it's hard for me to be consistent with my goals when I don't have a plan or a routine to follow. I get distracted, nervous, lazy, frazzled. If I only relied on motivation to get things done, I most certainly would not get a single thing done.
This New Year, I challenge you to do more than write down a simple resolution. I challenge you to come up with a functional and realistic plan. If you want to get healthier this year, what does that mean? Does it mean eating more veggies, losing a bit of weight, working out? Will you meal prep to get those veggies in, what's your weight loss strategy, how often will you work out and at what time? Asking all these questions is tedious and it certainly makes the process of realizing your resolution more intimidating but in this way. you now have an action plan that will last well beyond the New Year.
