Resolutions don’t work!
Written by Mike Cheliak on January 7, 2010 – 4:38 pm -It’s just about a week since many people have made these incredible, life altering, well meaning, supercharged, ambitious, inspiring resolutions.
According to Decima research; 35% of the people who make a New Year resolution will stop after one week, 65% of those who started will quit after one month and a whopping 95% will quit their resolution or fall back into their habits after 6 months.
What does this mean? It means that people using the New Year to make a change are generally unsuccessful at committing to the change. The holiday season in general is a time of over-indulgence. Too much food and drink and not enough emphasis on restraint or healthy activity makes us susceptible to a huge mental guilt trip.
We tend to have a Gateway mentality when it comes to starting something. A starting point, a start line, a point of reference, a measuring point, point of convenience and so on. The New Year is an obvious point because many of us have really sank to new low levels. Gaining weight, drinking excessively, lying on the couch to recover and so on are catalysts. The result of this makes you feel that you need to “do something quick”.
In comes the convenient “resolution”. You convince yourself that you are going to do it, you plan it, you join a gym, you dump the booze, you throw away the smokes, you vow to cleanse with lemon juice, maple syrup and water for a month and you shop at the health food store and so on.
Your resolution has become a monster, an enemy, an inconvenience, a source of stress and eventually a thing of the past. You are now part of the statistical reality.
I decided that I wanted to race a couple Duathlons and Mountain bike races again this summer so I wanted to lean out by around 25 pounds. I have been lifting very heavy and eating clean but a little heavy on the carb side. I informed myself that I was going to eliminate all grains and booze and would eat clean (the 80% rule) until I hit my weight of 180lbs.
I made my decision in mid December shortly after finishing another challenge (30 runs in 30 days) which was FANTASTIC! I am now eating according to the Primal Blueprint (Google it if you want to know more). This meant I had committed to a REAL CHANGE regardless of the date.
With the Holidays just literally around the corner, I got a lot of questions from friends and family about the “timing” of it. I told them simply that it has nothing to do with the time of year and everything to do about “MY TIME”. I explained to them that I was quite happy to “eat around” the menu and still enjoy everything including (most importantly) the company.
Over the Holiday season I dropped 5 pounds, I remained committed to my fitness and I ate according to the Primal Blueprint better than 80% of the time.
I may have come about this conclusion for you in a very roundabout way but here is what my point is. Resolutions don’t work. What works is committing yourself to the task at hand. Four years ago I made a commitment to myself (and my family) to get in control of my health, nutrition and fitness. I have done that. THAT was my only commitment! No specific groundbreaking, earth shattering resolution, just one main challenge…take control of yourself!
Control is achieved by educating yourself, surrounding yourself with positive influences, communicating with support groups (health and fitness forums, local groups, Addiction counselling centres…) and most of all believing in yourself!
Once you have control and know what you need to do, then you can start challenging yourself to do more specific things. I lost 60 pounds just by “taking control”. Once you have control…then the FUN BEGINS!
In happiness and health as always,
Mike C
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