Achieving your New Year's Resolutions

by Dr. Troy Miles

Dr Troy Miles

As we welcome in the New Year, most people are optimistic about the year ahead. It is a time for new beginnings and a great time to make positive changes in our life. We often find that a lot of our clients at chiropractic4wellness make New Year’s resolutions that relate to their health, sometimes in response to overindulging during the festive season.

A lot of people make New Year’s resolutions but it seems that very few people follow through to achieve their goals, often due to a few simple mistakes. Most commonly we see people commit or try to change too many things at one time or trying to make big, drastic changes to their life without the proper planning. For most of us, it is far more effective to make a series of small changes that we can maintain over a long period rather than trying to change too much at once.

One of the most common New Year’s Resolutions we see in our clients in to improve their diet. Rather than trying to make drastic changes to their diet, it is actually far more effective to make small, realistic changes such as reducing our sugar intake, eat a few more bits of fruit or veggies or switching to wholegrain bread from white. Little improvements each day can make a massive difference in the long term.

If you really want to achieve your New Year’s Resolutions this year, a great idea is to write them down, in detail with your reason for the goal and keep it in a place you will see often. Over the next few weeks and months, refer back to your goals and see if you are on track.

Another common problem with New Year’s resolutions is not clearly defining what you really want to achieve. Goals such as “getting fit” are vague, lack detail and can be a huge goal to achieve and certainly needs to be tackled over a period of time. Instead try breaking it down to smaller goals and getting more specific about want you want. For example plan your schedule to walk 3 times a week for an hour. Rather than “I want to lose weight” try “I will lose 5kg in the next 8 weeks by eating whole foods, less sugar and exercising 4-5times per week”.

A lot of people make New Years Resolutions, just because it is the new year. This is a great time to make positive changes in our lives, but we are not likely to succeed if we don’t have a real reason to make change. Determining why you want to make these changes and the motivation to do so is an important part of setting your resolutions for the year ahead. The more specific your New Year’s Resolutions are the more likely you will achieve the outcome you really want.

Good Luck!!