Achieving Your Resolutions

January 1, 2012

By Anna Varriano

Happy New Year!

I hope that you all had a wonderful holiday time with friends and family and that you happily enjoyed all the delicious meals and treats that come with the holidays…in moderation of course!

A lot of people have been sharing their New Year’s resolutions with me. The top two are to lose weight and to get ‘healthier’ or fit. These are great resolutions and this month’s tip discusses why most of us don’t achieve our resolutions and how we can change this, including access to a limited time free offer that I hope you’ll take advantage of.

I recently read an article that discussed some research that stated that even though over half of us are ‘confident’ we can achieve our resolutions when we first make them, by the end of the year, only 12% of us will be able to say that we were successful – and it’s not because our resolutions were impossible to achieve.

So, why are we so unsuccessful and what can we do about it?

Regardless of whether your resolution is to lose weight, or get fit, or eat better, or get out of debt, or reduce the stress in your life, or spend more time with your family, I believe there are two basic reasons why 88% of us fail.

First, we aren’t taking the right actions to reach our goals. This could be because we are lacking information, or we think we have the right information when we are actually misinformed, or we don’t know where to go for the best information, or we don’t have a practical, step-by-step, realistic plan regarding what we should be doing to successfully achieve our resolutions.

Second, we don’t have the right mindset to reach our goals. This could be because we’ve tried it before and failed, so even as we announce our resolutions, in the back of our mind we’re already thinking “you’ve never been able to do this before…what makes you think it will be any different this time around?”  Maybe we feel this way because the resolutions we’ve set for ourselves aren’t very practical or realistic in light of everything else we have going on in our already busy and stressful lives.

Let’s take a look at actions and mindset in respect to the most common New Year’s resolution: “I’m going to lose weight this year.”

So…

What are the right actions to take? Significant calorie restriction? Avoiding fats? Eating fats? Using artificial sweeteners? Avoiding artificial sweeteners? Eating less whole grains? Eating more whole grains? Avoiding snacks? Skipping lunch? Eating every 3 hours? Avoiding caffeine? Drinking green tea? Avoiding chocolate? Eating chocolate? Confused yet?

What is the right mindset to have?  Telling ourselves we are going to lose 50 pounds this year? Making lists of all the foods we need to avoid? Making lists of the things we don’t like about our body?  Making up for the piece of cheesecake we ate last night by going to the gym today? Using positive affirmations about our body?

Here’s a phrase that I hear frequently from people who say they want to lose weight:

“I know what I need to do to lose weight, but I just can’t do it!”

Here’s my take on the above phrase, broken into two parts:

“I know what I need to do to lose weight…” I can tell you from experience, that most people don’t know what actions to take to lose weight and this is, for the most part, due to the amount of misinformation and conflicting information out there about weight loss and nutrition in general. This can be addressed by getting educated in order to separate the myths from the facts regarding food, supplements and other factors that affect our weight such as hormones, chemical imbalances, and food sensitivities (even some really healthy foods can cause issues for some of us).

“…but I just can’t do it!” My feelings towards this come from one of my favourite quotes: “Whether you think you can or you can’t, either way, you are right.” (Henry Ford). This is a mindset issue and it can be addressed by learning practical tips and tools to adjust our thoughts and the words we use, which ultimately change our results.

In most situations, actions and mindset go hand-in-hand. It can be challenging to change the actions and choices that we have grown accustomed to. Even if we know they aren’t the best for us, we feel safe or ‘comfortable’ with them. But if we pay attention to our actions and mindset, change can happen!

Positive actions can be sabotaged by a poor mindset, and a positive mindset can be sabotaged by poor actions…but thankfully, the opposite can also happen. Poor actions can be turned around  by a positive mindset, and a poor mindset can be turned around by positive actions. For example, when we start to take the right actions, we will likely notice some good results. When we notice good results, we will likely be motivated to take more positive action. Additionally, when we notice good results, we are also more likely to develop a positive mindset about our actions…and as we develop a positive mindset about our actions, we will likely be more motivated to take more positive actions, and so on, and so on, creating a wonderful positive feedback loop!

So, if I’m going to lose weight” is a New Year’s resolution that you’ve made in the past and are hesitant to make again, or if you’ve ever thought or spoken the phrase “I know what I need to do to lose weight, but I just can’t do it!”, I’d like to offer you something right now that will help you to be among the 12% who successfully achieve their New Year’s resolutions.

As always, I look forward to partnering with you to help you achieve a healthier, more vibrant you in 2012!

Yours in health,

Anna

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