Many of us see the New Year as a clean slate, an opportunity to set new goals and stick to them without past failures weighing us down. Rightly, these resolutions often include our health: exercising more, eating healthier, and balancing our lives to improve mental health. These are all great ideas and I encourage people to use the new year for such resolutions. But sticking to them isn’t always easy.
There are a few tricks that I’ve learned to making resolutions stick beyond March.
First, gardening can help you keep your New Years resolution. Click the link to go to my other blog and get the full story. Here are a few excerpt:
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Having your own fruits and vegetables is empowering. It’s a constant reminder that you aren’t powerless over your health. Your decision matter.
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Taking care of vegetable and fruit plants reminds you about your health at least once a day. It’s not a brutal, self-abusing reminder like looking at a scale. Rather, gardens of any size can be beautiful inspirations. These little reminders prompt you to make healthier decisions, even if they’re small.
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Once you try your own organic produce, you’ll begin to notice a difference in taste compared to conventionally grown foods. You can tell why organic produce may cost more; it’s worth the investment. This will make shopping easier if you ever run into sticker shock.
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Working with food-bearing plants reminds us where food should come from and our relationship with it. That knowledge encourages you to be more mindful of food sources and ingredients without a lot of work. Bell pepper and hummus dip is made of, well, bell pepper, chickpeas and spices. What are Oreos made of? Exactly. If you can’t answer that or pronounce things in the ingredients list, don’t eat it!
Secondly, research helps you create reasonable goals that you can accomplish with pride! Research requires time, so dedicate one evening this week to reviewing your resolution list and making sure that your goals are reasonable. If you’re goals are too drastic, you’ll just get frustrated, and you’ll likely stop.
For example, it’s healthy to consistently lose 2lb per week or less for weight loss goals. You might drop more in the beginning and eventually plateau. If you’re trying to lose 5lb per week, every week, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. If you want to improve you race time, realize that you can’t safely shave five minutes off of a race in just a few weeks of training.
I wish you all the best in 2014! Cheers!