With 2017 behind us, it’s that time of year where everyone jumps on the resolution wagon. Unfortunately that wagon makes the odd stop within the first few weeks and half of it’s riders jump off.

So, how can you make a resolution and actually stick with it? Simple, start small. All to often we make this huge list of goals and we expect to make them into regular habits by January 31st, and when that ultimately fails, we quit. We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again. Start small! Pick one goal, one small thing to work on in January. Then come February pick a second goal, and so on and so forth. Biting off more than you can chew is recipe for disaster when it comes to goals. We as humans get far to overwhelmed with trying to keep up with the break neck pace of life that we forget that a day only has so many hours.

We tend to forget that 2018 is a NEW YEAR not a new month in which we have to make all the changes we want right away. You have all year to slowly, but
successfully make healthy changes.

Quitting smoking, isn’t going to happen over night. It’s going to take hard work to stop that habit, and there will be days where you may slip up and that’s okay. It’s the days that you want to smoke, but don’t that you focus on, slowly those days will start to outnumber the bad days.

Changing your eating habits isn’t something you can do in one month. It’s something that takes time and planning to achieve. This last year I’ve worked to convince my other half that he doesn’t need a pop at 2:00 pm everyday to keep him going. I stopped buying pop and eventually he stopped drinking it through the week and found that water worked just as well. Does that mean he quit cold turkey? No, not at all, and I’m sure there are still days that he goes for lunch and has a pop, but 80% of the time he doesn’t drink it.

The same goes for your personal fitness goals. Going to the gym hard in January, 5 days a week 2 hours a day, just isn’t sustainable. However, picking 3 days a week and working out for no more than 1 hour at a time is a great way to ease yourself into the process so that you do become overwhelmed and be part of the crew that jumps off the wagon prematurely.

I watched a video recently by Personal Trainer Mike Vicanti, which I will post on our Facebook page this month, that says exactly that, you can’t expect to be perfect every single day, you can’t do it, it’s not possible. What you can do is strive for perfection 80% of the year. A year makes a huge difference, a year has 365 days for you to work at your goal. Nothing happens over night, you need to stay focused and allow yourself to be perfectly imperfect.

If you aren’t sure where to start, let Candace or I know, we’d be happy to help get your started on the right path. Happy New Year and we wish you all the luck for 2018.

-Candace & Cortney