February 2024: Reaching for 2024 resolutions

Do you have high hopes that your New Year resolutions will stick? A recent government survey of 1,000 Americans at year end 2023, says that only 22% saw their resolutions through to the end. If you feel any qualms about your annual resolution plans, there's help.

Psychologists and other social scientists have been studying why our expectations, plans and future goals, do not reach the desired end point.

Maintaining resolutions always seem to be difficult. Here are a few tips:

1. Don't think too big. Keep your goals realistic, but be clear and specific.

2. Keep a daily calendar log. This simple tool is often overlooked. Tracking your progress is the best way to continue to improve. It's like having a personal coach reminding you to - just do it!

3. Be patient. Transitioning to a new habit takes time - a lot of time. There will be barriers to success, but consistency is the key to a new mindset.

4. Remember progress is not a straight path forward. You will have to re-access your goals from time to time and put the train back on the track.

RESOLUTION PROBLEMS AND FIXES

There are many reasons why we get diverted from out goals. A good many are out of our control:

1. Family Interference

2. You are too easy to access

3. Unsuitable private environment

4. Temporary Illness

5. Changes in duties and responsibilities

6. Share your goals with family and friends. Try to surround yourself with those who uplift and inspire you.

STICKING TO IT

What was once called self-discipline, self-control, or will power, is no longer acceptable. Psychologists suggest new ways to re-think our self-confidence and avoid personal blame.

Our confidence to maintain good habits rests on steadying our ability to reach our goals. Rather than punish your self for any failure, see these failures as situational rather loss of will power. Run through all the temporary factors that led to a setback, such as "social media addiction", and make a firm

commitment to get back on track. Self-forgiveness isn't an escape from personal responsibility, it's a temporary pause to reappraise why the relapse happened.

LEARN FROM YOUR MISTAKES

Overcoming past failures is not easy.

Try to avoid beating yourself up when things go wrong. We learn from our mistakes when we treat ourselves fairly.

While we can't escape the fact that we own the mistake, we can easily re-access the reasons behind our setbacks and solidly set a path forward.

STRENGTHEN YOUR RESOLVE

Remember past successes. These are embedded mindsets that are easy to remember. Our journey to our goals are not going to be in a straight line, but with many detours along the way.

Always refresh your memory of extra special success stories from the past.

Just being deeply interested in resolutions, and reading about it in narratives like this, sets you apart from the morass of mediocrity. Come 2025, you"ll want to be up there with the 22%.

CRUNCH TIME FOR ESSENTIALS

Now that you've made up your mind on specific resolution goals, just how formal do you wish to make this project?

Do you wing it, or do you provide a detailed outline of fitness/diet proposals on your calendar, or writing pad?

I asked "Al" Chat-GPT for ways to program and track fitness/diet ideas during the calendar year:

1.     Be simple and clear about goals which must be achievable. Set a specific target like "walk for 30 minutes every day".

2.     Setting the bar too high with too many tasks is sure to fail. Look back on previous resolutions. Maybe change some of your past failures with fresh ideas. You want to be realistic.

3.     Pick the right environment. Having a good exercise environment will ensure that the job gets done. Doing most of your fitness regimen at home allows you flex time, making easy to adapt to time constraints and interruptions.

4.     Short on time? Break your exercise routine into three 10 minute sessions.

5.     Give your resolution time to become a habit. There's a deeper purpose in having firm resolutions. It's outside the hum-drum of daily living. Something that will pay you back with a feeling of good health and accomplishment.

6.     Celebrate your victories. Treat yourself when a job is well done.

7.     Always have a backup plan.

Adaptability keeps you on the course. Changes in the weather, or other unplanned interruptions, will happen. If you're always ready for "Plan B" your performance won't suffer.

WHY DO WE DO ALL THESE THINGS?

Lets face it, our modern lifestyle is a perfect formula for obesity and diabetes.

Our hunter/gatherer ancestors evolved over thousands of millennia, establishing the basic DNA genetics we use today.

This results in a modern lifestyle that's at war with our ancient genes.

Question anyone about maintaining health and fitness and you will receive every possible answer except the one fundamental that Charles Darwin covered over150 years ago. This is not a trick question, but only the most fundamental reality in understanding how we function. Natures laws favor the young with every advantage, period.

After passing our reproductive prime, nature loses interest in our wellbeing.

Winning back that advantage is what this bulletin is all about.

An active lifestyle of hard work and proper nutrition will put you right where you want to be.

DON'T FORGET DIET

The Mediterranean type diet is still king. It's the basis for maintaining a strong muscle mass. The advent of popular GLP-1 type drugs to promote weight loss, allows us to backtrack to the problem foods that got us into trouble in the first place. Keep in mind weight loss drugs still can't prevent insulin resistance (pre-diabetes). We simply can't continue to indulge in the highly processed and refined foods of the past.

One other caution. Make sure your professional healthcare provider OK's the plans for your 2024 resolutions.

f health bulletins possible,