Intention: Stick To New Year's Resolutions. The How.

So, I know what my New Year's Resolution goals are for 2023 and if you had a look at my last blog post, you'll know the reasons why I chose the goals that I did. Now it's time for me to figure out how I intend to stick with them.

We've already gone over the first two steps required to turn any goal into a reality - figuring out what your goals are and why you chose the specific goals that you did.

Step 3 is to figure out how to turn those goals from dreams into reality, keeping in mind that these steps apply to all goals, not just New Year's Resolutions.

If you read my post New Year's Resolutions, you would know that my goals for 2023 are to:

1. Consume more fresh, healthy produce, mainly focusing on wholefoods such as fruit, veg and wholegrains, while consuming less processed, fatty, greasy foods and excess animal products.

2. Cut down on added sugar and excess sodium and replace flavoured milk and coffee in favour of drinking more water and herbal teas.

3. Get more exercise and spend less time sitting around.

4. Go to bed on time in order to get a good enough quality and quantity of sleep.

5. Continue reading and learning about self-care, but instead of just reading and learning about improving my diet, lifestyle, and mindset so that I can be the best version of myself that I can be, I would like to actually start putting these things into practice.

My next post Why I Chose The New Year's Resolutions That I Did, basically went on to outline that my ultimate reasons for choosing my specific goals are that I want to feel happy, healthy, and energetic. Next step is figuring out how and getting a plan in place to help make this happen.

So, what can I do in order to help myself stick to the abovementioned goals/ New Year's Resolutions? The steps I plan to take are:

Writing a list of the healthy wholefoods that I want to incorporate into my diet.

For the sake of getting my new healthy habits put in place, I'm going to stick to only what I know and like and actually eat.

There's no point putting "eat more brussels sprouts" on my list because I don't eat them or know what to do with them.

Sure, I could figure it out, but when implementing new habits, the best way to do it is to start small and then work your way up from there. Making things harder than they need to be is a guaranteed way to fail!

I can always add Brussels sprouts to my menu later once I get better at sticking to healthy eating habits.

Writing out a weekly menu so that I know what I plan to have for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks.

Once I know what foods I want to eat, I need to figure out how and when I'm going to eat them. I know from experience that there's no point going to the grocery store without a plan.

It may seem like a good idea to go and fill your trolley with every fruit and vegetable you can think of and then figure out what you're going to do with it all later, but I can tell you from experience that this is a terrible idea.

The only thing that happens when you shop this way is that you end up wasting a whole lot of food and money and creating unnecessary stress for yourself.

Fresh produce doesn't last very long and it can be quite stressful trying to incorporate everything that you bought into your daily meals before it spoils.

You might even find yourself eating way more than you need or want to in order to help get rid of it all, which is not going to be ideal if one of your New Year's Resolutions is to lose weight!

It's also pretty depressing and makes you feel quite guilty when at least half your produce ends up in the bin because you couldn't get around to eating it in time - not to mention that it's terrible for the environment!

Knowing what to have for each meal and then writing out a list of what you need to buy is a much better option. It also helps to find meals or snacks that use most or at least some of the same ingredients.

There's no point buying an entire pumpkin if you only intend on eating pumpkin at one meal and have no idea what you're going to do with the rest of it.

Tip: If you have a partner or family member who is unsupportive or not interested in eating healthy with you, it might be a good idea to have a think about what they might have for their meals also. It may be necessary to cook separate meals or find ways to disguise your healthy ingredients.

Preparing meals (or elements of meals) in advance.

Meal prep may not be for everyone, but for me personally, I'd much rather spend an hour or so on the weekend prepping the majority of my week's meals than spend time doing it during the week.

During the work week I find that I get lazy and lose motivation, so the last thing I want to do is spend more time in the kitchen than I need to. Before and after work, I'm looking to make my life as easy and convenient as possible. I find sticking to healthy eating much easier when everything is there ready to go.

If I don't have enough time, or just can't bring myself to prepare breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks for the entire week, I'll at least prepare a big batch of rice, or pre-cut some of my vegetables - something is better than nothing!

Planning activities and days to exercise and thinking of ways to incorporate more movement into my day

I've never really had a super amount of tolerance for exercise, so I can often find it very hard to stick to any kind of routine, but I'm actually getting to a point in my life where my body is quite literally screaming for it - I can feel it!

The way I intend to make it stick this time is to start off really slow and easy and build up from there. I'm literally only going to get out of bed 15 minutes earlier each morning and commit myself to no more than 5 minutes a day on my exercise bike.

At this point I'm focussing more on ingraining the habit than anything else. Once 5 minutes becomes part of my regular routine and becomes something I can do on autopilot, I'll increase the time to 10 minutes and so on, and so forth.

I'm also going to schedule half an hour every Tuesday afternoon to swim in my mum's pool (who thankfully lives only around the corner) and Thursday nights will attend my weekly kickboxing class.

Swimming and kickboxing are actually workouts that I enjoy, so this should hopefully feel more like fun than a chore.

I've also set a calendar reminder at work to get up from my desk every hour to simply walk up the stairs and then back down. Easy.

Setting a time for bed and planning a simple bedtime routine.

Again, not planning anything too extravagant or ambitious here, just a few simple tweaks and changes for now.

The first thing I will do is set myself up to receive 2 notifications each night - one to alert me an hour prior to the time that I'd like to get ready for bed - in this case, 8.45pm. From 8.45pm-9.45pm, I will stop whatever I'm doing and read a book in order to wind down and help switch my brain to "sleep mode".

I will set up the other notification to alert me 15 minutes prior to the time that I would like to be in bed and I will then use this time to prepare for sleep - brush my teeth, wash my face, get comfy in bed etc.

So, now that I have my What, Why and How all worked out, all that's left to do is put my plan into action! Once work starts back up and I start work on my New Year's Resolutions, I'll let you know how I go - wish me luck! 🙂

Have you made any New Year's Resolutions for 2023? If so, have you worked out how you plan to go about sticking to them or creating new habits for yourself? I'd love to hear your intentions!

Happy to have you here and I hope you have a great day/ night!

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Hope to have you back soon. Thanks for reading.

Lisa. 😊 xx