Baby steps

Baby Steps

With me it’s all er nuthin’.
Is it all er nuthin’ with you?

~Will in OKLAHOMA!

Making New Year’s Resolutions, particularly about our health, is a ritual many of us practice. And, it would seem, forgetting about them by mid-February or so is practiced just as frequently.

sparkler-677774_1280Why do we have such a hard time with these annual goals? I think the secret lies in what sort of resolutions we set.

In the glow of champagne and a feeling that we’ve been granted a do-over with the flip of a calendar page, most of us tend to bite off way more than we can chew and set “all or nothing” sort of health goals: give up junk food, quit caffeine, detox from sugar, lose 30 pounds in a month….

In the light of cold mid-February days, these enormous commitments suddenly appear exactly as they are – unreachable – and so we toss them aside.

Setting resolutions about our health is certainly worthwhile – but the goals really need to be broken down into baby steps – small actions that feel manageable from the start. If there are tiny steps we can take daily without too much stress on our resources (time, money, physical/emothional condition), incorporating them into daily habits is much easier.

If “getting healthy” is one of your goals this year (by the way, if you know anything about S.M.A.R.T. goal setting, that’s a terrible way to state it), try instead to think of 1 tiny step toward better health you can take every day for a month – practically without trying. At the end of the month, if you’ve been diligent about it, that tiny step is most likely going to be part of your daily routine and you won’t even think about how you never did it before. The next month, add another tiny action that will improve your health.

feet-619399_1280By the end of 2016, you will have accumulated 12 new healthy habits, and I guarantee you’ll notice a difference – not day to day, perhaps, but definitely between any before and after photos you might take and any journal entries you might make.

If you’re willing to give this approach a try, check in with my blog on the first of each month – I’ll be posting a baby step suggestion (or it might spark one of your own) that you can incorporate daily.

If you’re interested in setting (and achieving) your New Year’s resolutions in a S.M.A.R.T. fashion this year, let’s get together in person or on the phone and talk about YOURstory – I’d love to help you reach your goals!

Here’s to your best health.