New Years Resolutions
Tips to help you achieve your goals
New Year's resolutions are often related to personal health and wellbeing.
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The New Year's resolution has been made, but the implementation is still lacking? With these tips you can increase motivation and the chance of success.
The first two months of the new year are almost over and keeping the resolutions failed again. At the turn of the year, many people firmly resolve to abandon old habits and work on themselves. Not infrequently, the topics of healthy eating and weight loss play a role. But what to do when your weaker self constantly has the upper hand? Dr. Dominik Dotzauer, author of the book "Automatically lose weight", knows the answer. He reveals his five best tips to the news agency spot on news so that they can still implement the resolutions they have made.
Tip 1: only tackle one project
Ask yourself the following questions: Would you rather really implement one resolution or do you want to fail because of three resolutions? When you list all of your resolutions, which one is most important to you? There is no either / or here. A year is a very long time: once you've built one resolution into your life or completed the project, the next can follow. The success you have experienced will carry you forward.
Tip 2: plan properly instead of dreaming
With a good plan, your chances of success go up. You know what to do and don't have to decide spontaneously. Because spontaneous decisions usually cost nerves and lead to unnecessary mistakes. But plans can also paralyze. If they are too big and complex. Therefore: plan and implement just enough and, if necessary, adjust the plan. Think about what is really essential? How do you implement this as easily as possible for yourself? And what has worked well or badly for you in the past?
Tip 3: Pay attention to actions, not results
What you can't directly control are your results – such as your weight or strength on a given day. What you can directly control are your actions – what you eat, how often you exercise, or when you go to bed. You will make it a lot easier for yourself if you measure yourself by your actions, not the results. Measuring results only helps to assess whether things are going in the right direction.
Tip 4: forgive slip-ups
Nobody implements the plan the way they downloaded it from the Internet. This is completely normal. Life and everyday life come in between. The important thing then is to come back, adjust the plan and stick with it. Instead of self-blame, self-compassion will help you. Just as you would help a good friend, you can help yourself too. Develop a method of dealing with setbacks that includes the points above, or use the method from the book that I recommend to my clients.
One of the most common causes of slip-ups is not due to lack of discipline, but rather to emotional eating behavior in the event of stress, frustration or boredom. In order to stop emotional eating, instead of more discipline, a basic understanding of the causes and a different approach to this behavior is necessary.
Tip 5: Draw strength from small successes
Are you stuck in a low motivation and not getting any further? Then try the following: Do what you set out to do in a mini-version. You haven't done any sport in a long time? Then do a squat right now or take a short walk a few meters. You haven't paid attention to your diet for a long time or you have stopped the diet? Then eat something that contains protein and some vegetables.
Does that seem ridiculous to you? That's the point behind it. Because as soon as you experience that you can do these little things, you will have more confidence in yourself again. This approach works because it is based on one form of therapy – acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). In ACT you act with mindfulness for the moment and your own feelings according to your own values, instead of avoiding negative feelings.