3! 2! 1! HAPPY NEW YEAR! But wait…… what now?

Health and fitness are common New Year's resolutions.

Here we are again: Another year gone and another year coming. It’s time for the annual ritual of looking back and reflecting over the past year, looking towards the coming year, and for making New Year’s resolutions. It’s also a time to think about how many New Years’ resolutions you have actually kept, not just in the past year but in all the years before. Most people make resolutions in a general way such as – “I’m going to lose weight”, “I’m going to get fit”, “I’m going to improve myself”, “I’ll be a better person”, and so on and so forth. Although most of the time, these good intentions evaporate or are put away together with the Christmas decorations. That tends to happen with our good intentions. There has to be a plan to turn them into actions, otherwise they will just remain as intentions. So, let’s say you’ve made a resolution to lose weight. It’s not going to happen just because you want it to, right? You need to set definite goals – how much weight do you want to lose? Over what period of time? Then you can make plans of how you are going to do it. Diet, exercise, or a combination of the two? And what changes to your diet to make? What kind of exercise?

Planning and action are important but consistency will get you to where you want to be.

Remember to set a realistic target. For example, 2kg in 4 weeks until you reach your target weight. If you aim to lose 10kg, it will then take about 5 months and this gives you a time frame. Now that you have an intention, a plan, and a road map to achieve that intention, it is now a matter of execution, and then maintaining the results of your goal when you have achieved it.

Explore those interests! Pick up those hobbies!

This is true even for older people. Making resolutions and then planning on how to follow through with them is a good way to keep positive and motivated, especially when you start to see results. Intention + action = results. Intention + no action = no results and no change, which can be very demotivating and might lead to depression and have a negative impact on one’s physical and mental health. A resolution doesn’t even have to be about something big. Even for something simple, it’s more about following through and putting it into action.

You've got this!