It’s time for making new resolutions and changes. It’s a time for planning ahead to the New Year. It’s a time to think about the things you want to do and the changes you want to make in your life and for your life. The two most often made resolutions and most often broken are to eat less and exercise more. I’m sure if we made a plan to eat more and exercise less, we’d do just fine, but the truth is – we need to stop saying I should do this or I could do this or I would only do this if I had … blah, blah, blah.
Self-Discipline & Choices
When it comes to making a resolution or a change whether you will be eating less or exercising more, it’s important to recognize that you need self-discipline to maintain these changes. The choice can be hard because by choosing to exercise you are choosing to not kick back and relax in the chair. Your reward for exercising is not immediate and gratifying – though anything worth have – often takes time and effort to achieve.
Too often, we are a society of instant gratification – too caught up in the joys of watching a television program without commercials, getting food delivered to the front door, doing research that doesn’t require stepping away from the computer and if we could just make it happen – losing weight and getting in shape without actually having to break a sweat.
When you make the choice to be more disciplined in your habits; when you make the choice to work out regularly; when you make the choice to take the hard way instead of the easy one –- you may not reap the benefits today, tomorrow or next week, but you will receive them.
Start Small
It can be hard to crack down on yourself or to institute great changes because they require such great sacrifices or maybe that’s what it feels like. So start small. Make small changes. Whether it’s deciding you will only have one cup of coffee per day instead of your usual three or you will only put one teaspoon of sugar in the coffee cup instead of two. Perhaps you’ll decide that you won’t eat dessert after every meal and that chocolate becomes a nibble that you have from time to time.
You might buy a pedometer and increase your steps by just 50 per day – but make the change small and you will be amazed at what a difference this one small choice can have on you. In many cases, this one small step is so profound that it will encourage another small step and then another – and before you know it, that great change you were looking for and that seemed so impossible – is both right within your grasp and a great deal easier to touch.
So forget the woulda, the shoulda and the coulda — just do. What small change will you make?
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