New Year Resolutions that Stick to You

Posted by Angela on January 11th, 2008 filed in Body Mind Fitness

How do you make commitments to yourself? Who makes sure you keep those commitments?

I have some questions in this blog for you to ask yourself - as the answers may give you some insight as to what makes your MIND tick and how your MIND will make your New Year’s resolutions STICK to YOU.

You are a combination of your thoughts, feelings, personality, memories and daily experiences. (NOTE: you are not your past experiences - but the memories of the past influence YOU!) The more you watch how your mind works, the more you will learn how you play your life. If you want to commit to yourself, you need to understand how your emotions and habits are running your life so you can master them.

One of my favourite fortune cookie quotes is

” Life is not the hand you are dealt, Life is how you play the cards”.

So let’s look at No.1 New Year’s Resolution - to Lose Weight.

Write down the first thing that comes to mind when you read these questions:

1. What makes an exercise and diet program so compelling to you?

2. How do you feel about ideas, standards and goals that are set by somebody else besides yourself?

3. How do you feel about change?

4. How do you feel about a time table?

5. What’s your first habit when you wake up in the morning? (AFTER you go potty, brush your teeth, drink water or any other necessary bodily functions?)

6. When you wake up in the morning what is the first thing you think about?

7. When you think about exercise do you get excited?

8. What food do you buy, that you enjoy eating AND helps you lose weight?

9. What food do you know that no matter what diet you are on, you will not want to give up?

10. What do you think about when saying no to your favorite food?

And Now for your Answers:

1. Look at your attitude to an exercise and diet program - make sure your friend, family, trainer or SOMEONE knows your belief about exercise and diet so they can HELP motivate you move beyond nagging insecurities that exercise and diets are a drag or just not going to work. Find what compels you to stick to a program and write it somewhere you can see when you wake up.

2. If you have a negative attitude to working with a “plan” you will end up leaving that plan. Your attitude to someone telling you what to do may bring up some rebellion or resistance in you - just recognise your resistance and focus on the positive results you want from a plan. You do not have to stick to the rules - you need to stick to what your best possible outcome feels like and how much you want that goal.

3. Your attitude to change reflects your fears and excitement at this moment - and they can change too!

4. Aaaaah Time. Be realistic - if you want to change your life, you must commit time in your day to new behaviour and some parts of your life may have to go.

5. Change starts easier at the beginning of the day. If you want to change your routine, start by changing something when you first wake up and the conscious mind has not got a hold of you!

6. Change also starts by watching your habitual thoughts. If you want to focus your attitude to losing weight, then start with a focus at the beginning of the day. Speak your intentions out loud, stick them on the refridgerator and in the bathroom. Give your intentions a feeling - “I will be xxx pounds and feel sexy, powerful, unstoppable” - whatever!

7. Just find some exercise that gets your juices flowing! If exercise is boring to you, you create negatives chemistry in the body which prevents you from losing weight!

8. When you enjoy food that also good for you, the body also creates a chemistry that is conducive to feeling good - and feeling good encourages the right chemistry for fat loss metabolism.

9. Diet and sacrifice do not go well together. If you want to stick to a diet, you have to find ways to cope with sacrifice those comfort foods without going cold turkey. Be aware of the foods you are crazy about and that make you obsess about eating bad food again - because it “feels” good. Try not to black list your favorite “naughty” foods, but find a surrogate version that is good for you.

10. Saying no to something you want can be VERY CONFUSING to the body. The body chemistry is telling you to have that Dunkin Donut, but the New Year Resolution is saying NO! When you feel deprived it can lead you to rebellious behaviour. This is why food is such a good comfort - but if you want to stick to your ideal YOU - you will need to imagine an ideal sense of yourself that is not dependent on food alone to get what you want.

Notice your feelings about saying NO to something you want. Call your friends, find good company, something fun, indulge in feel good activities to distract you from feelings that you are not getting what you want right this minute. Your resolutions stick to you when you listen GENTLY to your feelings and are FIRM with the voices in your head saying you cannot have what you truly want.