How a “Bucket List” Can Help You Achieve Success in 2014

Happy happy new year everyone!

It is time for the resolution speech.  Even though the whole “lose weight” and “get in shape” thing is my business, I am not really into resolutions since most people set themselves up for failure.  It is hard to watch folks fail but more importantly, I do not understand why we all set these big goals January 1, ultimately not achieve our goals and then beat ourselves up when it doesn’t work out… It just seems like every year it never works out – so why do it?

Why not just set ourselves up for success?  Why not get to root of why things are not working?

I have been thinking about this a lot, talking to colleagues and experimenting with what will work and I am thinking it really comes down to sorting things into buckets. 

Food – protein, carbs, fat, recipes, portion size, label reading, food education, alcohol.

Behaviors – planning your day and week, having all the supplies you need for a successful day, creating consistent patterns.

Exercise – figure out what exercise program will work for your goals, schedule, physical limitations, motivators and lifestyle.

Emotions – all the baggage we hold around food – rewards, being hard on ourselves, guilt, coping, mindless eating…

Which bucket would you like to work on?  If you wanted to focus on ONE area…only ONE..which would it be?  This is not the time to set your resolution as  lose weight, train for a marathon, talk to your spouse about emotional eating and learn to cook.  While all are great, choose one thing to focus on and achieve success.

Be specific. When making goal, have a plan.

• “I will workout 3 times a week during the week.  Each workout will be a minimum of 20 minutes.”
• “I will find three new recipes that I can cook in bulk so I can have food for the week for lunches.”
• “I will buy a water bottle and start drinking 1 liter for three days and then start adding 8 ounces a day until I get to my goal of 3 liters a day.”
• “I will talk to my spouse about cooking on Sundays.  Together we will plan into our schedule for the week and weekend so this becomes a regular routine.  If there are problems, we will reach out to Jae to come up with strategies.  Goal is for us both to have lunches 3 days of the week and 3 dinners for the week.”