Today is New Year's Day. All across America, people are dusting off and lacing up their running shoes, vowing to get in shape, lose weight, and eat better. This will be the year they'll get healthy. THIS will be the time they'll be successful.
Or not.
The best piece of advice I've ever heard about New Year's Resolutions - or any kind of resolution - is that in order to be successful, they need to be specific. A general pronouncement of "eating better and getting healthier", while surely a worthwhile and noble goal, is so vague as to be almost unattainable. Choosing a resolution without a specific and clear-cut intent can mean setting yourself up for failure before you even begin. How do you even know if you've achieved it? Who decides what "healthier" means anyway?
A small, specific goal (or lots of them!) is easier to focus on, easier to reach, and easier to pave the path to what is truly greater health and long-term success.
A few examples:
1. Pick one unhealthy vice (soda, pizza, the sugar in your morning coffee, etc) and go without it for one month. After a month, you won't miss it.
2. Go through your cabinets and give away everything with high fructose corn syrup. Start reading labels and stop buying anything that contains this ingredient.
3. Switch your cow's milk with rice or almond milk
4. When you go shopping, try a green vegetable you've never tried before. Pick a new one the next time.
5. Start taking a multi-vitamin
6. If you're not a breakfast eater, begin starting your day with a piece of fruit
7. Make a date with yourself to exercise at least three times a week, and show up!
8. Take some time every day, even if it's just 5 minutes, to meditate, do yoga or tai chi, or pray
9. Stop buying foods with ingredients you can't pronounce
10. Throw away anything with artificial sweeteners or colors
11. Pick a hobby you've always wanted to try, or a class you've always wanted to take, and do it
12. Forgive someone
Have a blessed, happy, and HEALTHY 2011.
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