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The new year is about one month old now, and I want to ask you two questions:
If you’ve answered Yes and then No, don’t feel (too) bad: research suggests that a whooping 65% of all New Year’s Resolutions don’t make it past Easter, and 1 out of 10 will already have given up and gone back to their past behaviors and routines after just one month! So why is that, and what can you do to avoid joining that sad statistic? It turns out the issue isn’t necessarily your (lack of) willpower or discipline or determination, and rather rooted in a failure of proper planning. What do I mean by that? 🍕Perhaps your resolution was to go for a low carb diet, but suddenly you found yourself on a business trip to Italy, surrounded by enticing pizza and pasta 24/7. 👩🍼 Maybe you thought you would wake up at 5am every morning and head out for a run or a workout, 5 days a week…but your young child hadn’t read the memo about your expectation for 8 hours of undisturbed sleep each night. In both these instances, you can of course blame yourself for lacking the willpower to say “no, grazie” to all the 🍕, or not being disciplined enough to hit the gym in spite of sleeping only 4 hours, but that won’t do anyone any good. Because the issue isn’t in your intentions, but rather in your failure to anticipate the typical obstacles that life always finds a way of throwing in your path (and having a plan to work around them). Put differently, as Helmuth von Moltke said it, “no plan survives first contact with the enemy.” And unfortunately in this instance, the enemy is none other than “real life” itself! Life has the uncanny ability to throw lots of unexpected punches. Some hits catch you off guard, but many of life's challenges are actually foreseeable, either through past experiences or by some advanced planning. So as you look at your (perhaps already abandoned) New Year’s resolutions again, consider rethinking them and starting at the end: anticipate what obstacles (pizza, crying babies, late nights in the office, etc) might pop up that would derail you from the “optimal” path. Take the time to think these through, plan when and how they might hit you, and prepare so that these hits don't sting as much or at all. When setting your goals or resolutions, extend your vision beyond the initial enthusiasm. Fast forward 3, 6, or 12 months and ask yourself: How might this go wrong? This isn't meant to discourage you; quite the opposite. Planning for potential setbacks reduces the likelihood of falling short. Instead of crafting plans solely for ideal scenarios, create a blueprint designed for the realities of life. Optimism is valuable, and realism is essential. Merge the two, and you position yourself to succeed despite the punches life may throw your way.
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The following post was first shared in my monthly newsletter, the Kinsei-Do Fitness Nuggets, back in March 2022. With the calendar turning another page recently, some people - perhaps you too! - will have made resolutions to live healthier, eat better, exercise more, etc etc for this year, and this advice is likely to be helpful! According to James Clear, habit expert and author of the bestselling book Atomic Habits - a personal favorite of mine and one of my most-gifted books to clients and friends - whether you succeed in achieving your goals and desired behaviors has almost nothing to do with your willpower, or how much you think you want it. Surprised? I certainly was at first. So what is it then that determines your likelihood of success? Your environment. Consider this cheeky yet so true statement, also known as "Berardi's First Law", after the co-founder of Precision Nutrition and coaching guru Dr John Berardi: If a food is near you and conveniently available, you will eventually eat it. This appears so obvious that it doesn't even need to be stated, but if you think about it, it tells you exactly what you need to do (and not do) if you want to instil a new habit or positive behavior. You need to make sure that the "right" environmental cues are extremely obvious and omnipresent, and the "wrong" cues, the temptations, are out of sight and hard to do.
Or, back to James Clear, who says:
For this reason, redesigning your environment can be one of the most effective steps you can take to instil good habits. James Clear calls this process “environment design”, and its key goal is to make the cues of good habits more obvious (and bad ones harder to follow through on). Here are some examples:
Sounds obvious? Yeah. Easy to do even? Probably. But are you doing it? Did you find this tip relevant and useful? Would you like to receive more quick and actionable health and fitness tips? Then click here to subscribe to the monthly Fitness Nuggets!  Let's chat about the importance of sleep!
Yes, diet and exercise matter (a lot), but skimping on sleep can wreck your well-laid plans thanks to your sleep-deprived brain. When you don’t catch enough quality sleep, your frontal lobe gets annoyed. Not sure what that means? Just know it's the part of your brain in charge of decision-making and willpower. In simpler terms: lack of sleep makes it tough to stick to a healthier diet, resist those calorie-packed snacks, and hit the gym. That's why giving sleep its due is a key part of a healthy lifestyle and diet. Aim for a solid 7 hours to start. Once you've nailed that, you can work on getting even more shut-eye.  Did you know that as little as 30 minutes of strength training per week has been linked to lowering your all causes mortality risk by up to 20%?
A review of 16 studies looked into this in the "British Journal of Sports Medicine," and the researchers discovered that being strong is like having a superpower against health issues, especially when it comes to avoiding stuff like heart problems, diabetes, and cancer. So if you’re struggling to hang on to those New Year’s Resolutions to do something for your health and longevity this year, know that you can start (very) small! Set aside 10 minutes a day, three times a week. If hitting the gym isn't your thing, the research suggests that bodyweight exercises can offer the same health benefits. So, throw in some squats, lunges, pushups, bodyweight rows, and pullups. Those quick workouts might not feel like a lot, but if you stick to them for at least three times a week, it'll pay off and make a significant impact. |
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