Set Yourself Up for Success in 2023 With These Three Tips
Every year, without fail, people say that they want to start - or start over - with their health and wellness journeys.
The lists are long and include things like:
Water
Meditation
Steps
Workouts
Eating healthy
Stretching
Plus one. Plus one. Plus one.
So. Many. Things.
What statistics prove over and over again about New Year’s Resolutions is that only about 9% of people, on average, keep them for the entire calendar year. I found out this fun fact on Inside Out Mastery where I also learned that “The Babylonians made the first New Year’s resolutions about 4,000 years ago. Not on the first of January but in mid-March when they celebrated the spring harvest of barley, a 12-day festival called Akitu.”
Maybe proving my point that resolutions don’t have to land on any specific day, especially the first day in January, to be a resolution.
Regardless, I get it. The first of January is a nice clean slate to make a resolution.
The problem with the list above is that the goals are too unrealistic and ALL of it is entirely unsustainable.
If you pick 52 things to focus on, you will stick with all 52 of them for maybe five weeks, and then you will get entirely upset when you can’t be perfect in all 52 things or you’ll suddenly get a wave of frustration because it’s all so damn overwhelming, and well, you’ll stop. Everything. All 52 things.
My number one tip to set you up for success in 2023 is to pick ONE or TWO things you want to focus on (not 52).
Then, when and only when you make those one or two things a habit (usually around 28 days of consistent action), you can bring one more thing into the mix.
Be gracious with yourself. Remember that this is not all or nothing. You can take a day off or miss a day and still have a habit.
Yes, when something is new, it’s important to commit to the repetitive action to get into a flow state with the behavior, but if you want to run a mile a day, and you run a mile five days in a row and have an emergency on day six or you’re feeling pain in your ankle on day nine and you take a single day off (or two or three), you can get back to it on days seven or ten or whatever it is and still be in the habit.
You do not have to bail on the habit.
And this is why it's so incredibly important to focus on smaller amounts of habit-building. If you miss a day doing ONE thing, it’s much easier to swallow than missing 52 things.
It’s all building blocks. It’s all growing. Making habits and keeping them are continuous actions that get easier, yes, because well, the pattern is there, but everyday we wake up, we have choice.
Secondly, surround yourself with good people.
It is so powerful to have people in your corner who have the same goals and aspirations as you. It’s also powerful to surround yourself with at least one person that is already doing the things you want to be doing. For example, I could hang out with a couple friends that I know want to get into running if I want to get into running. We will be able to share our experiences of being new, and we will (hopefully) inspire each other on the days that we feel off. And how beautiful to ALSO be in the presence of an ACTUAL runner (meaning, someone who has a history of commitment to running).
Both will serve a great purpose in my work.
Number three. Put your phone down.
SHIIIIITTTT. Don’t we all need this?
I just started putting a time limit on my two favorite apps - IG and TIK TOK - and, boy, has that helped me figure out how “bad” I was with them. I put this in quotes because, of course, the apps themselves are not good or bad. I am speaking more directly to the ridiculous amounts of time that we can end up investing in rabbit holes of the internet.
I have also recently started putting my phone away after dinner every night. My sleep is better and communication is better with my partner.
This is not something that I recommend being an all or nothing thing. Saying you will not go on your phone AT ALL is likely very unrealistic.
I recommend looking at the day where you get on your phone the most, and then try and put it down ten minutes earlier, which will impact your average for the week.
Then, like above, once you have that down…ten minutes earlier…ten minutes earlier…ten minutes earlier. So on and so forth.
Here’s the thing. You will fail on something. And that is okay. Life is about adapting to different and new situations that help you create the life you desire.
If everything were easy and you never failed, you wouldn’t actually be growing. So WHEN you fail (not IF), maneuver around it and KEEP. FUCKING. GOING.