We are now in June and the first five months of the year have flown by. 

And as we come into summer, you might be asking yourself whether you’ll actually achieve your goals this year, especially if you haven’t started working on them as yet.

What to do if you haven’t started on your New Years resolutions

It’s important to first think of what has stopped you from being able to achieve your goals in the first five months. Was it because you got busy? Were there other things that you made a priority? Was what you set out to do too difficult and overwhelming which made it hard for you to keep up with?

Whatever your reason, that’s fine as it’s never too late to get started and there’s no better time to start than now to ensure you still achieve your wellness goals.

I’m sharing some things that you can use to help you get back on track.

Firstly, what’s your “why”?

This is important because when you are clear and know what your why is, you can then prioritise it.  Knowing what’s important makes you more focused and then you can do what’s needed to reach your goals.

For instance, if your why is to lose weight to improve your health markers because you have high blood pressure, high cholesterol or diabetes, you should put that on the top of your list, as you want to live longer and age healthily.

Or your why might be to lose weight and look good for an upcoming wedding.

Or your why may be to have more energy to get through the days, to avoid falling asleep mid-afternoon.

Whatever it may be, write down your why and send me an email letting me know what this is so that we can discuss further on what you need to do.

Make your wellness one of your main priorities and you must ensure that you don’t let other commitments get in the way.  

Can you review and revise your goals. 

The goals that you set in January might be too difficult or unrealistic. Instead of setting lofty goals, break them down and make them specific by setting SMART goals. For instance, instead of being vague and saying you’ll lose 10 kilos this year, break it down to what you need to do to reach that goal, such as go for a 30 minute walk every day. It is important for your goals to be SMART Goals – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time bound.

Make it fun

Find a way to make things fun so that you’re going to want to do these and then it doesn’t feel like a chore. 

For example, if you don’t like to go to the gym, you can consider signing up to a dance class that you’ll enjoy and still enjoy the same benefits of being active.

Keep your meals interesting – Instead of eating salads that you find boring, why don’t you try some new recipes with ingredients that you like.

Start small

Start small and build things up a step at a time so it is not too difficult for you to do. Instead of saying you’ll stop having sugar altogether and ending up craving it, you can start by reducing your daily sugar intake. For instance, you could reduce the sugar you are putting inside your tea or coffee or reduce the amount of the biscuits that you have with your tea or coffee

Progress

Focus on progress not perfection. When you are overly focused on perfection, you are very hard on yourself, you don’t have enough patience and you end up giving up. Begin celebrating your small wins however small they are. These small wins are the things that are going to help you to reach your big goals.

I would love to know what your goals are for 2022 and why these are important to you.  Do send me an email at sujata@optimum-nutrition.org and I’ll share some tips and inspiration on what to do to achieve these.