Resolution Solutions: A three step process

When it comes achieving to New Year’s resolutions, two buzz words we often tell our clients are consistency and balance.

While it is important to eat well for example, this must diet must be balanced with foods which you can stand on a daily basis in order to achieve results—as opposed to Atkins, Zone or any many of the other diets which are unnecessarily complicated.

By the same token, building your tribe of those that support your goals helps to balance the mood and perspective when feeling down.

One of the first questions I ask when taking on a new client is what parts of your life and in and out of balance? And what can you do to make lasting changes?

While it may seem like common sense, a little step by step pre-planning can go a long way to safe guarding your January resolutions become reality

Step #1: Identify the problem:

Lets face it: whether we are talking about fitness or keeping this blog consistently, any sort of balance can be exceedingly difficult in the midst of parties, relatives and time off with the family.

And for me, this amounts to the same conversation I must have fifty times over the holiday:

Guy in bar: Hey man, you own that gym downtown right?
Me: Who is asking? Do I owe you money?
Guy in bar: Dude, as you can see, I really need to come see you (at this point they will find some reason to slap the belly)
Me: Well, what do you want to accomplish?
Guy in bar: Man, I want to get in great shape like the guys on P90X, so in January I will stop smoking, hit the gym every day and eat peppers for lunch! (Ok, I just threw that last part in to make myself feel better)

While it is important to note that 90% of the conversations end when I mention eating peppers for lunch, the first step to setting goals is pinpointing what you want to achieve and what you are willing to sacrifice to do so.

For example, if you want to stop smoking, is it realistic to do so in one day? Why not gradually phase out a cigarette a day and/or a pack a week at a pace that is manageable? For diet, work on getting consistent with the times of day you eat and meal choices.

Once you have this down, making small changes is far more effective than going from random eating (where the foods and times you eat change per day) in a diet which calls for depriving yourself of food.

In the business, we call this “setting the table” because you are preparing yourself for your goal. In part two, I will look at several more specific goals (including my own) and solutions we have developed for dealing with these for the New Year!