The beginning of a new year brings new opportunities with unlimited possibilities to be more and do more with our knowledge, skills, and talents. The new year provides us with the option to leave the past behind and to start a new chapter in life. It’s also allows us to continuing to build on previous life experiences to take our game to the next level. We now have 365 new days, a total of 8,760 hours, to accomplish whatever we desire. Whatever we decide to do with the upcoming year is up to us.

Traditionally, we tend to start the new year by adopting a New Year’s resolution with the intent to change or improve in some aspect of our lives. We make promises to ourselves to do things better and/or leave behind behaviors that no longer add value to our well-being. Unfortunately, the excitement of taking on these new changes fissile out before too long. According to U.S. News, approximately 80% of New Year’s resolutions fail by the second week of February. This occurs primarily because it’s easy to fall back into old habits and the struggle to do things differently becomes too much of a day-to-day hassle. And when we don’t receive immediate gratification or expected results, we lose confidence in our ability to get it done.

I would like to offer a perspective that may help you stick to your 2018 New Year’s resolution. Instead of concentrating on the outcome of living up to the resolution, I propose that you focus on the level of dedication required to achieve the desired goal this year.  It requires a willingness to keep working to achieve the end results even when you don’t appear to be making progress. Although you may have projected it will take 90 days to lose a certain amount of weight, it may actually take 180 days or more. However, you won’t get there if you don’t keep trying. I encourage you to dedicate your time and effort to do some type of fitness and nutritional activity each day. Eventually, you will succeed at reaching your New Year’s resolution.

While a resolution is often nothing more than a verbal commitment, it demands that we dedicate our time and effort to accomplish the goal we hope to achieve. It makes us personally responsible for whether we succeed or fail at this year. Without an investment of time and effort it’s very unlikely we’ll accomplish anything we set out to do- big or small. Old habits are hard to break. It took some of us 25 years to perfect our bad habits, so we shouldn’t be surprise when we find it so difficult to let them go. They provide a comfort zone and we must be willing to try something new. Where as in 2017 you slept seven hours a night, this year sleep only six hours and use the free hour for exercise and fitness. Also, you don’t have to stop eating, just reduce the portion size and gradually change what you eat.  The secret is to burn up more calories than you take end on a daily basis. In 90 days, you can be in some of the best fitness of your life. It’s all about your life style.

Dedication of our time and effort to accomplish our New Year’s resolution will ultimately determine our success. There will be ups and downs, unanticipated challenges, and moments of self-doubt along the way, but victory is ours in 2018.

We had better get going because we only have 359 days left.    

“Be Great” in 2018!

Written by Dr. RL Kight for Mind Power Solutions.        

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