Happy New Year! A clean slate, fresh start, new goals. Goals that we WILL achieve this time, NO MATTER WHAT. You start strong. You may have even written down your goals. Maybe broken them down my months? Weeks? DAYS? You’ve got this! January 1st: Exercise-check, Healthy Eating-check. Day 2 . . . still going strong. Maybe just one cookie. Maybe it’s better not to exercise EVERY day. Excuses wiggle in and before you know it, “maybe next year.”
I have two theories as to why we don’t keep on keepin’ on. The first is excuses. It’s not easy to continue good habits. We have been doing the same things for a very long time. Giving up seems easier than continuing. My theory is you need to figure out the one thing that comes into your mind every time you’re about to quit and change your perspective. My excuse is “It doesn’t matter.” Those are dangerous words for me. I lost sixty pounds in 2019 and gained back thirty this year. It sucks. My clothes don’t fit. I don’t feel good, in general. I kept telling myself it doesn’t matter if I have seconds or thirds, it doesn’t matter if I literally never eat vegetables or drink water, it doesn’t matter if I have a sandwich at 9:00 when I had a perfectly normal, satisfying dinner three hours before. It’s a problem, y’all. But I keep telling myself, “I did it once and I can do it again.” And I will. Because it does matter. I matter. I have learned a lot this year about loving myself. I deserve to be healthy. I am capable of getting healthy. And I will feel so HAPPY when I get to my goal weight. So, I am combatting “It doesn’t matter” with “It does matter. And it is possible.”
The second thing is we try to do too much all at once. This is why New Year’s resolutions don’t work. This is a marathon, not a race. Pick ONE THING to work on for one period. Maybe you decide to not eat after 6:00 for one month. Maybe you decide to walk one mile four times per week for one quarter. Maybe you decide to only eat out once per week for the year. Smaller goals done one at a time over time are so much easier to achieve and sustain. We don’t like this though. We want results FAST. But, think about that. We set many, lofty goals that we expect to achieve in a short amount of time. We don’t reach any of them and feel like a failure. Or, we set a few, attainable goals that are not overwhelming, achieve them and feel amazing. It’s not rocket science. Once you accept the fact that nothing is ever going to happen as quickly as we want it to, you can set a goal, decide that you’ll stay on track, and stick to it. And, if you fall off the wagon a couple times, brush yourself off and get back on.
I wish you a healthy, successful, and happy new year!
Kara Macdonald
Founder, KMac Training & Consulting
(571) 432-9382
