Ugh that time again...what are your resolution choices? Give up smoking? Only drink alcohol on a weekend? Stop biting your nails? Cook from scratch once a week? Learn something new? Read more? Join a gym? Lose weight? Resolve not to make a resolution?
There are so many. If you start one what are the odds of it being broken by 23rd January?
Anyway...2018 I set my resolution "I will walk my dog a new route every day." What I know I would have said before was "I won't walk the same route", where I live it's really easy to do 2 5-6km walks that I could do with my eyes shut, basically just a loop. As we get towards the 31st December I have done what I resolved to do. Putting a positive spin made it seem like something pleasurable to do rather than stopping something that I could do in my sleep. Turns out there is a lot of Leamington to see in an hour that I never knew existed!
As we get closer to 2019 it's made me think about what I'd like to do in 2019. I don't want to give anything up, I don't want to feel that sense of deprivation! 365 days is a long time to stick to something too. I could say I'm going to enter a 10k, I could say I'm going to master pull-ups once and for all, I could say I'm going to read more. The thing is, nothing is grabbing my attention enough to want to commit to it and if I don't do it I'll just be annoyed with myself.
This time last year I was setting mine and took a different angle...instead of saying I was going to "stop" doing something or "give up" something I decided I would "do" something...less of the negative language e.g. stop, give up won't. My resolution turned out to be "I will walk the dog a new route every day". Starting on a positive "I will" already suggests that I would do it. Turn it into "I won't/I'll stop walking the dog the same way" immediately begins with a negative phrase saying you aren't going to do something...and that sticks.
So when you're thinking about setting one for yourself if you want to stand a chance of sticking to it beyond the end of January try and make the resolution a positive one...think of the benefits you'll get from sticking to it...for example "I am going to cook from scratch once a week" begins by saying "I am" so you have to. The cooking from scratch is a positive because you'll know exactly what is going into your meal, you can make it healthy and you may even get to learn new recipes that you wouldn't have done before.
As for me? Well I'm taking it even further this time...My Resolution for 2019 is to set a different resolution for each month of the year.
Rather than set 1 to stick to for the entire 365 days I am going to break it up into months. So I might choose to do something new, learn something, try something...who knows? But the 1st day of each month I will start a different resolution.
Now I just need to decide what I am going to do....any suggestions gratefully received at info@gymima.com they don't even need to be fitness based! While you are at it, let me know what yours are. x