It’s 2019! Let’s Make Your Goals a Reality

Happy New Year everyone! I would like to take this opportunity to wish you and your loved ones health and happiness in 2019.

The beginning of a new year seems like a great opportunity for a fresh start right? It’s 2019. Feet on ground. Face forward. Let’s make ME a better ME. I love it! This is the perfect mindset for change so let’s look at ways to help you to achieve your goals.

Bad news first.  Let’s get it out of the way!  According to the time management firm FranklinCovey, one third of resolutions don’t make it past the end of January. This is a significant number of fails.

But this won’t be us because we are going to tilt the odds in our favour and plant ourselves firmly within that 2/3’s group by adhering to a few simple strategies to transform our goals in to realities!

Here we go.

First off…

Make sure that you really want to do this!

Let’s start here. Make sure that you really want to achieve the resolution that you have made. Do you really want to switch to dandelion coffee or is it just the trendy thing to do?

If you are not fully invested in your resolution, it’s just not going to happen.

Make sure that the goals you set are realistic

Seriously. Don’t aim for a marathon if you don’t own running shoes.

Start small and build on your successes.

 

Write it down

A study done by Dr. Gail Matthews, a psychology professor at the Dominican University in California, found that those who wrote down their goals achieved significantly higher rates of success than those who did not. In fact her findings were that you become 42% more likely to achieve your goals, simply by writing them down on a regular basis.

Make a plan

Create key action steps that will keep you on your path to achieving your goals. For instance, if your New Year’s resolution is to meal plan for your weekly dinners, 3 actionable steps could look like this:

  1. Pick simple, tasty recipes on Saturday
  2. Shop for your weekly ingredients Sunday
  3. Wash and prep your veggies when you get home from shopping

You can achieve anything if you truly want to and are prepared to put in the work.

You’ve got this!!


References:

http://www.dominican.edu/academics/ahss/undergraduate-programs/psych/faculty/fulltime/gailmatthews/researchsummary2.pdf

 

 

 

Tips for Achieving Your New Year’s Resolutions

Ringing in the New Year symbolically turns the page to a blank canvas offering perhaps the wish for  continued happiness or the hopes for better times to come.  And although we cannot know what the future holds, we can perhaps influence our path in the right direction through the many choices that we make.

New Year’s resolutions often revolve around weight loss, exercise and time well spent.  All very valid and well intentioned targets but without a clear plan these goals can be hard to achieve and can fall by the wayside quickly as life gets in the way.

So this year, instead of looking down the road of a marathon, let’s go step by step with simple strategies to help us achieve our goals.

My offerings to you…

Be mindful

Stop looking ahead and enjoy where you are right now.  If we keep looking forward we miss now and now is where we have the opportunity for our greatest happiness.

Be mindful of what your eat and what you drink.  Don’t just feed your body, nourish it.  Food matters.

Move

Exercise means different things to us all.  Don’t start off at the level you want to be at, meet yourself where you are.  If that means going for a walk each day, grab your Fitbit and go!

Don’t sit for more than an hour at a time.  Get up and get that blood circulating.

Get Good Quality Sleep

Sleep is where we detox and repair.  Make sure you sleep in a dark room with no electronics close by.  Have a bedtime routine.  Don’t eat right before bed.

And finally…

Cut Yourself Some Slack

Be realistic!  Achieving good health isn’t crossing a finish line.  It is a life long commitment to treating yourself with respect and graciousness.  Make it your goal to do one good thing a day for you and build upon that.  This could be anything from drinking lemon water in the morning, to setting aside time each day to listen your favourite music or reading a good book.

My wish for you is a year and a lifetime of abundant happiness, dreams that become reality and the opportunity to share them with those whom you hold dear.

Happy New Year!