New Habits, New Horizons
Raise your hands if you are struggling to keep your New Year’s resolutions…..?
January is often seen as a chance for a fresh start. New horizons, time to kick bad habits to the curb and replace with better ones. However, it’s not always easy to see them through to success and we can easily forget those resolutions and return to our usual ways, waiting until next year. Sound familiar? As it’s almost February, I thought I would try and help a little with some tips and tricks
1.) Never start on a Monday
It’s natural to pick a Monday as we believe this is our chance to make things right and follow things through for the week. BUT, this can be a bad thing. Research suggests a Thursday is an optimal time to start a new habit. It’s usually the quietest day at work, so you have more time to focus on yourself.
2.) Don’t try to do it all at once
Be realistic in your expectations. Our brains cannot take on too much change at once. I often hear clients wanting to eliminate sugar, caffeine and lose weight and gain muscle! (the last two is another blog all together). All these things can often make our minds foggy and no strategy is put in place to achieve these goals. It’s easier to make small changes over time to ensure sustainability. For example, you want to reduce your sugar in your tea and reduce the amount caffeine you consume, so try to cold cold turkey and proceed to spit the said sugarless tea/coffee out when you take a sip! Try instead to reduce the amount of sugar in your tea/coffee by 1 tsp over the course of a week and then half and so on. Get to grips with one bad habit at a time Then once you have established the first new good habit and can sustain it, go on to the next one. Don’t try quitting caffeine and sugar at once – eliminate one every couple of months instead.
3.) See it, believe it
Visualization is a a great tool for establishing new habits. Keep a picture in on the fridge, in your purse of a time when you were fitter, stronger and healthier. If you don’t have a picture of yourself, use one of someone who embodies the lifestyle you want to achieve. But as I say always be the best version of you! Athletes often run through in their minds them crossing the finish line first or jumping the highest. The mind is such a powerful tool and it can work with us if we train it positively.
4.) Focus on what you can have
Our brains are designed to avoid loss, so when we are trying to eat healthier our brains start to to emit feelings of deprivation and the urge to repel this feeling can become overwhelming. To combat this, try to re-work your thoughts and feelings by creating a list of all the things you can still have rather than obsessing over that piece of cake you are trying not to have. It will only make you want it more. Make food swaps such as really sweet fruit such as strawberries and raspberries with Greek yoghurt to emulate that same sweet treat feeling.
5.) Don’t expect to get it right first time
I can guarantee you won’t get things right with diet or training straight away, so why beat yourself up telling yourself that you should? No one is perfect, so why waste your time aiming for perfection? The important things is to not give up. If you cave in and eat the cake, don’t beat yourself up. So what if you ate dessert last night when you’re attempting to cut out sugar? That was yesterday and established habits can take some time to break, so pick yourself up and start over.
Hope that helps,
Sarah x
Be the best version of you
