Every year we ask members of the Sleekgeek Community if they have any New Year Resolutions for the year ahead.
Unsurprisingly, losing weight is always the most popular answer.
While that’s great an all, there’s a lot more to being fit and healthy than just losing weight.
How about we go a bit deeper and get more creative with our resolutions this year?
14 HEALTH AND FITNESS RESOLUTIONS THAT *AREN’T* WEIGHT LOSS:
1) Wake up and make a choice, every single day.
Every day you have to make a choice about what kind of person you want to be and what kind of actions you’re going to take to live up to that goal.
It’s either a conscious choice that you have control over, or a subconscious choice that you make anyways without even realising it.
The more conscious, mindful, and intentional you can be about how you live your life, the greater your chance at succeeding. Act upon life, don’t let it act upon you.
If you have to, set a daily reminder on your phone or put a post-it note up on your bathroom mirror to remind you to make your choice for the day.
2) Improve your cooking skills.
Knowing how to cook is one of the best ways to make eating healthily so much more enjoyable and sustainable.
Food is supposed to taste good, it’s one of the simple pleasures in life.
3) Spend more time with like-minded people.
You become more like those around you, good or bad.
Spend more time with those you make you better, spend less time with those who make you worse or hold you back. Social media, books, podcasts, and TV series count too.
In this day and age, you can buy a R200 book and gain access to insights and influence from the most successful people in the world.
Choose wisely who you listen to. Join the Sleekgeek Group on Facebook if you haven’t already as an easy first step. Then get involved!
4) Be your own biggest fan, not biggest critic.
We like to bully and beat ourselves up a lot…
But imagine if you spoke to your best friend or spouse the way that you spoke to yourself?
It’s OK to want to improve and develop yourself, but just because you aren’t content with where you are now doesn’t mean you have to beat yourself up about it.
Change your internal dialogue to be supportive rather than destructive and you will change your life for the better.
5) Schedule your workouts.
Exercise is not something that you find time for, it’s something that you make time for.
Show me your schedule and I’ll show you your priorities.
This goes for all of your priorities… Whether it’s health and fitness, family, continued education, and so on – schedule what’s important to you so that you can make sure it happens, else this year is going to fly by just like every other year.
6) Focus on behaviours, not outcomes.
When most people set goals, they focus on the outcome that they want, such as to lose weight.
But if you’re looking for a system to help you take consistent and effective action, then you should be focusing on goals built around the actual behaviours that will eventually lead to the outcome that you want.
7) Get physically stronger.
Yes, women too. Especially you. Girls Gone Strong have a great article on “The benefits of Strength Training for Women” (which applies to guys too, of course) and it includes everything from looking better to feeling better, living longer, and being more capable and confident at life.
Being physically strong is a true-life skill if there ever was one.
8) Get mentally stronger.
Physical strength is great, but so is mental strength.
In fact, in many ways, willpower is like a muscle. Put it to good use on a daily basis and it will grow.
Here are some Things That Require Zero Talent But Will Make You More Successful if you put in the raw effort.
9) Design your environment.
Your environment affects you every minute of every day, for better or for worse.
Willpower and motivation are important, but designing your environment for the better will make your healthy habits come more easily and require less willpower to stay on track.
A good example of this is the food that you keep in your house. If you keep lots of healthy food in your house, you’re more likely to eat lots of healthy food. If you keep lots of junk food in your house, you’re more likely to eat lots of junk food.
This is not about luck, or genetics, or motivation, or willpower. It’s environment desing.
10) Walk more and more often.
Sedentary behaviour and physical inactivity are one of the top factors (along with smoking, high alcohol consumption, and obesity) that strongly reduces life expectancy and health-related quality of life.
Even if you go to the gym for 1 hour a day X 7 days a week… If you sit on your bum behind a computer, in the car, at a table, on the couch, or in your bed for the remaining 23 hours of your day then you are STILL sedentary.
Make walking more a habit.
11) Improve your sleep.
Getting enough quality sleep (here’s how) is one of those “Keystone Habits“ that leads to a cascade of other healthy habits.
Most people find that when they get enough sleep they crave less unhealthy food, they feel more motivated and optimistic, they have more energy to workout, and everything just feels that much more do-able.
When you are sleep deprived on the other hand, not only does your health actually suffer, but all of your good nutrition and exercise habits become less effective and much harder to stick to as well.
12) Be more “always something” and less “all-or-nothing”.
Health and fitness is not about being perfect. It’s a best-effort approach.
It’s about gradual progress and continuous improvement. It’s about being better than you were yesterday.
Don’t let one bad meal or one missed workout knock you off your feet, just do your best and keep on going.
If this is something in particular that you want more help with, check out the Sleekgeek Coaching Program as this is a primary focus for what we teach.
13) Lead by example.
We like to talk about the “Sleekgeek Inspirer”.
This is someone who leads by example and inspires others with their actions.
Whether that’s here online in the Sleekgeek Community, at home with your family, at work with your colleagues, or when you are out and about with your friends.
Be the change you wish to see in the world (and yourself), don’t wait for someone else to come and do it for you.
14) Successfully complete the Sleekgeek 21-Day Reboot Challenge.
The Sleekgeek Reboot is a short and focused FREE 21-day challenge designed to help you ditch chronic dieting and build healthier eating habits.
The Sleekgeek Reboot will help you to:
- ✅ Eat better so that you become healthier, leaner, and more energetic.
- ✅ Improve your relationship with food and put an end to food guilt.
- ✅ Get away from the “all-or-nothing” dieting mindset that causes you to stop, start, and restart all the time.
- ✅ Eat food that you enjoy in a way that works well for your goals.
- ✅ Build the kind of habits that fit and healthy people use to effortlessly live a healthy lifestyle without needing to follow a diet ever again.
