How do we get ourselves to create positive change, the kind that leads forward to beneficial and sustainable outcomes?
Let’s take a look at the question behind Upward Slopes, this time examining New Year’s resolutions.
Each January, most of us do a special something. The holidays have come and gone, and with stomachs over-filled and blood sugar spiking uncontrollably, we make a certain type of promise:
This January, I will…
… I will cut out/down on sugar
… I will stop drinking
… I will buy a gym membership and go X times per weeks
These promises – resolutions – make us feel good. They make us feel like we are finally going to do the thing that will make us the person we want to be:
… thinner
… stronger
… healthier
… feeling better
But we all know the story of New Year’s resolutions – they tend to be a major failure.
Sure, they make us feel good when we make them, and that motivation moves us to make the first few steps as we spend days or weeks following through.
And then, we stop.
Then, we go back to the same old routines we had back in the old year, leading to us living out the same “old” life.
But we want to make positive change, the kind that truly enables us to achieve and maintain that healthier lifestyle we envision.
So, what do we do?
Well, isn’t that BIG question.
Shall we attempt to answer it? Or, more realistically, to set a foundation for working …
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Before jumping into how we get ourselves to create the health-focused outcomes we desire, let’s first do a bit of work to ensure that those outcomes are truly aligned with healthier versions of our own selves.
If that statement confuses you, allow me to take a moment to explain:
As we think about what it means to be healthier, there are many misconseptions circling around what the entails.
The most common example involves weight loss. While there is certainly a correlation between excess fat accumulation and poor health outcomes, and while many individuals would certainly benefit from losing weight, this does not mean that weight loss is a healthy goal for many individuals who have been told they are overweight.
Excess fat accumulation and its relationship to health outcomes is a complex topic, and when it comes to health-focused weight, loss, things get quite complicated.
For this particular problem, I have a post dedicated to sorting out some of the nuances.
But for now, the point is this: sometimes we think we should make changes based on what society has told us we should do, but if this isn’t truly aligned with what is best for our own selves, then the path forward to achieving these goals may not actually lead you towards better health.
Our goal here is for each of us to learn to make decisions that truly support our own unique selves, and to do that, we each need to be in tune with our own life circumstances, our own lifestyle preferences, our own bodies, minds, and other individualized characteristics.
To help you sort this out, try this simple 1-2 step practice to help you get clear on whether your New Year’s resolutions are truly aligned with what is best for your own self.
Following this practice, we’ll get to work learning how we can take action that truly supports the health and well-being of our unique selves based on what we have identified as wants or needs on our own health journies.
Practice
Step 1: Examine your New Year’s Resolutions
What is it that you are seeking to be in the New Year?
Is it truly a better version of yourself, one who feels better, has more energy, more mental clarity, more physical capabilities, and/or is at a reduced risk of developing disease down the road?
Are you seeking to be an individual more capable of living out the life you so strongly wish you could be living?
Or, are your New Year’s resolutions focused on being a “better” version of yourself as defined by someone else, perhaps a society who has deemed certain aesthetics to be positive or negative?
The practice here is simple – get clear on what you want and why you want it:
- is this something truly going to add value to the life you are wanting to live
- if so, perhaps it is a good idea to embrace it – to get crystal clear on that vision and hold onto it
Step 2: Release any New Year’s resolutions that don’t truly resonate with who you are and what you truly believe will enrich your life
I’ll admit, this one is tough! It can be so difficult to let go of beliefs that have been instilled in us by a society that has values that don’t align with what will better nourish and support your best life.
Still, if you can make a practice of routinely checking in with why you feel the need to reach towards a certain goal, and if you can get in the practice of tuning in with how your desires truly rest in your body (i.e., do these actually light you up and make you feel good; or are they really just causing more harm and distress?) – if you can take time to routinely be mindful of this, then you become more capable of embraces that which truly enriches your life while releasing that which does not support you.
The practice here is simple in theory, yet can be challenging in practice.
If you have identified any resoultions that you think may not resonate with what is best for your health, it is time to release it.
This may be easy – perhaps there was something you really weren’t stoked about, and now that you realize it isn’t going to help you anyway, it is time to let it fly away.
This may be difficult – perhaps there is something that you’ve felt so strongly about for so long. Some examples:
- I need to lose these last five pounds to fit into those old pants! But you haven’t been able to no matter what diet you try.
- Now it may be time to release the resolution to really stick to this next diet this time, because now you understand that trying out one diet after another is not serving your health
- I need to actually get myself to the gym before work at least 4 times a week! But you are so tired between being a parent and a full-time job that you are dreading to get up early and lose precious sleep
- Now it may be time to release the resolution that you have to take on another stressful and time consuming activity
The point is not that you shouldn’t go to the gym or try to eat healthier. Instead, the point is that there are certain ways to nourish and move our bodies that truly support our own selves, and there are ways that we have been told will help us that actually just add stress and negatively impact our health.
So, once again, your task here is to recognize that which you have thought will benefit you in the New Year, critically examine whether it actually resonates with what you need at this point in time, embrace that which still resonates, and release that which you now know will no longer serve you.
Once you’ve completed this task, let’s move forward more fully answering that important question we are all seeking answers to:
How do we get ourselves to create positive change, the kind that leads forward to a healthier life?
Step 3+
Getting ourselves to take consistent action aligned with erating positive outcomes is an individualized and dynamic process. This means that what works varies between individuals and may change for one individual over time.
This, of course, makes things complicated and is the reason we can’t list out short and simple plans for us all to follow.
Still, if we all understand some key principles and strategically apply them to our own lives, I truly believe we are all capable of creating the change we envision.
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When it comes to being a healthier individual, here at Uwpard Slopes I focus on three categories of behavior:
- What we eat – how to better nourish our bodies and reduce the toxic load that we may ingest
- How we move – how to more routinely move our bodies in ways that bring joy & satisfaction, avoid injury, and support good health
- Stress balance – how to focus on stressing ourselves in ways that will lead to positive change while avoiding chronic stress or overly-high acute stress that causes damage
Over the course of January I will be discussing how we can take action that aligns with these three foundational healthy living principles.
If you are seeking more help achieving your New Year’s resolutions, or if you are seeking more guidance determining whether your New Year’s resolutions may truly be in your best interest, set up a free consultation with me and let’s discuss your next direction.