New Year, New You?

Its 2018 and with the new year many people make resolutions to improve themselves in the coming year. For many years I have been working in or working out that the gym and that is a great place to see the number of people who have made commitments to improve their health in the new year.

Every January, I witness several new people attempting to get in shape, but by February, one can easily see many have failed in their commitment to the gym. When I was in high school I was a trainer at the YMCA, we had a full line of nautilus equipment and I spent many hours teaching people how to use and train on that equipment. January and some of February were spent working with new members on building a routine to meet their goals. I tried to make it fun, entertaining and beneficial to all who wanted to improve themselves and their bodies. Sadly, I would lose many of them by March, most left slowly by skipping one or two workouts a week, others just disappeared into the clouds.

Change is hard for us as humans I think, and change with ourselves and our bodies is even harder because it is definitely not a quick process. There are studies out there that say to build a habit you need 21 days or so of it, well, that's just too many days for many of us humans to try.

So they quit and even go so far as making excuses for their failure. Change in ourselves and our bodies is just too hard because it takes too much time and effort and the changes are for the most part small. Look at weight loss or body shaping, our bodies can physically change over time and effort into a leaner and more muscular body, but not in a month, more like a year of working on it. And that seems to be way too much effort for some of us.

I have set goals pretty much every year of my adult life, sometimes I make it, sometimes I don't. But as I got older, I understood that slow and steady is what works best for me. So I have learned and changed my approach to my goals, making them yearly instead of monthly goals, making sure I am doing at least a little each day to move closer to my goals, etc.

I was having trouble finding time when I wanted to read books, now, through trial and error, I have been using Audible and trying for a book every two weeks. My driving time is when I get most of my books done. It didn't cost me any time, just making better use of my available minutes now.

So, not sure if you set goals for the new year, but I hope you do, I teach and firmly believe we need to BUILD OUR BRAINS AND OUR BODIES everyday. If you do have goals, I hope you reach them and remember, take your time and make it worth the effort.

Love you all.