Another year is upon us and that means time to hit the reset button! Making New Year’s resolutions is easy. Following through on them is the hard part. Too often we start the year off with a fury of renewed enthusiasm and then for one reason or another our fire slowly dwindles. Let’s make 2019 different.
One important thing to do when looking at New Year’s resolutions is to make your goal attainable in the first place.
I have, more times than I want to admit, set a goal and overwhelmed myself! Upon reflection, I realized I should have made my goal a little smaller in the first place.
Let’s say your goal is to make exercise a priority in your life and you are averaging two workouts per month. The New Year is here and you think, I am going to work out five times a week and get in shape! Going from two workouts per month to 20 is overwhelming to say the least and a sure way to burn your enthusiasm out.
Instead, make your goal to get two workouts in per week. This is less overwhelming to achieve and over the length of a year if you consistently met this goal, far better than averaging one to two per month!
Another way to ensure goal completion is to treat achieving your goal as a job. We often put our needs second to everything else in our lives and if we do not make ourselves a priority, we cannot possibly succeed. Furthermore, we are far happier when we achieve our goals.
Deciding to commit to something requires you to schedule it into your life and to not “call in sick.” You wouldn’t for work and so you can’t for your goals.
Last month I talked about “good” self talk and how important it is. I want to take that one step further and look at how positive thinking is the one sure way to make your New Year’s resolutions attainable.
If you believe you can then you are on course to doing so. The law of attraction is simple, like attracts like. If we think positively about ourselves, we start to attract more positivity into our lives. One of the best ways to achieve your New Year’s goals is to choose a goal that will increase the quality of your life.
We can often get caught up in how we look or what we have rather than focusing our thoughts and attention to what truly matters: our quality of life, our happiness and ultimately our health, both physically and mentally.
By focusing your attention to the quality of your life, your health both physically and mentally, you can start to pull away the veil of what sometimes gets hidden away from us when we lose sight of what truly matters.
When we set attainable goals and make them a priority, we achieve them. It feels good to achieve the things we wanted, too, and when we feel good, we think more positively and we vibe more positively. Like attracts like. Positive vibrations attract more positivity your way.
So, your view of the world and most importantly your view of yourself is a happier one. By choosing to set an attainable goal and making it a priority in your life you will in turn feel better about yourself, set more goals and attain those and the positive chain reaction just keeps going. So, this 2019 do yourself a favour and set a smaller, attainable goal, create the time and space you need to achieve it, and vibe positively!
(Nicole Cournoyer is the general manager of Anytime Fitness in Chemainus).