Was your New Year’s resolution to lose 5-7kg? Here’s 3 top tips from someone who stuck with it (me!)
It sounded like such a good idea 4 days ago… totally do-able, “this time I’m gonna (insert goal here) loose those last 5kilos/cut down my alcohol intake/be more active” – and then… life. Why do we keep letting ourselves down?! There must be a reason you’ve decided to create your resolution, and I’m sure it’s for the better, so find a way to make it happen instead of it being just another promise to yourself that you thought about, or even started, but didn’t follow through on.
- Make it small to start with – We all have big goals, and we know we’re capable of achieving them, but how about just starting small, then work towards the big one? You know the saying… “How do you eat an elephant? – one bite at a time” It’s a good one because it simplifies the answer to what we so often do with a challenge - make it seem like such a big, complex problem to solve.
So, think of a ‘bite sized’ challenge within your resolution (ie cut down your sugar intake / eat a good breakfast everyday) and promise yourself you’ll do that for a week. Once you reach the end of the week, you’ll feel proud of your achievement and maybe capable of adding one more ‘bite sized’ challenge, or maybe not! Stick with what you CAN do and don’t beat yourself up about what you can’t!!
- Write it down / keep a visual track – Write your ‘bite sized promise’ in your notes on your phone, put it on a piece of paper, or - my favourite - add it to some bright coloured sticky notes and attach them next to your computer, or somewhere you’ll see it regularly. Be clear and concise about the step you’ve decided to take. You can get creative here if you’re a visual person and add some photos of what your end goal will look like, or the reason you want to achieve it <3
- THE MOST IMPORTANT TIP! Commit to 21 days ONLY - 21 days is how long it takes to create a new habit so, trick yourself! Promise yourself you will ONLY be doing your ‘new thing’ for 21 days. That’s it, no more than 21. Everyone can do something for 21 days right? That’s only a minor inconvenience to your life, then after the 21 days you can look forward to picking up where you left off. Except, when you get to day 22, something weird happens…you just don’t feel so inclined to go back. It’s not really that inconvenient anymore to incorporate your new habit, and funny enough, you feel so much better anyway, so why would you go back to the way you did things previously?
I’d love to hear what your New Year’s resolution is! Write it in the comments, send it to me via DM, or email me – I would LOVE to hear from you!
LET’S DO THIS 2022!!
Nicola xx