New Year, New You? I Call BS.

“New year, new you!” Do you live by this motto? If so, it’s time to shift your perspective. You probably apply this limiting mentality to multiple areas of your life throughout the year, not just during the last month of the year. 

The problem with “time” is that we have a start and end to our days, weeks, months, and years. This time system helps society stay on track but, on a personal level, this has allowed for us to have "starts" and "ends" to our healthy habits or, in other words, excuses. I am going to challenge you to eliminate time as you currently see it and instead view your entire life as one big continuous year.

I used to be a serial procrastinator with numerous “starts and ends” in my life. At some point, after having successfully built a strong physique, recovered from a 2-year back injury, built a business, and now building another, I have learned that continuous effort every day, big or small, will produce incredible results. I no longer procrastinate to the level that I used to. 

I have truly learned that “the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the second-best time is now.” (Old Chinese Proverb) Rather than waiting to start something, start it now even if you are only able to put 2 minutes of your time towards it. SOME is better than NONE.

Now, let’s go into some ideas that have helped me stay on track with my healthy habits for nearly 2 decades.

A Little Bit Goes a LONG Way. Avoid Extremes.

People want quick results. We want to be entertained within 2 seconds (social media data). We want fast food. We want 2-day shipping (now 1). We want to be shredded in less than 30 days. We want to be millionaires with little effort (lottery). The list goes on. As a society, we have very little patience. 

A few years ago, one of our program members once said, “Putting work into the program every day isn’t hard. What is hard is not being able to pick up your kid every day.” Unfortunately, people often get stuck in their negative situations and are constantly searching for “quick” ways out of that situation. The search for fast solutions ultimately ends up taking a lifetime. In hindsight, the shortest solution to your problems is to take the “long and hard” route. The hard path often becomes the quickest, easiest, and most fulfilling solution. 

What is it that you want to achieve in your life? WHY do you want to achieve it? What is something you can do TODAY (or even better, right now!) that can help you work toward that goal? 

For instance, do you want to lose weight or get more fit? Rather than thinking that you need to put in a 60-minute hard workout every day, go for a 5 to 10-minute walk every day or go for 3 20-minute walks this week. This “small” activity will add up over several months. It’s easy and it feels incredible. You will find that, by starting small, you will help to build a lasting habit. It is the people that choose to start their fitness regimen on July 2nd each year that often fail. 

Studies have shown that only about 9% of people maintain their New Years' resolutions after a year of doing it. Gyms rely on that failure to make a profit every year. At this point, social media has created thousands of memes about this concept. It’s no longer a secret that resolutions fail. Why do we keep doing them? Why do they fail?

Resolutions are often big, overwhelming, and extreme. People go from living one way (2 days prior) to completely shifting their lifestyle in a big way. They may try to go to the gym for 1-2 hours every day, eat a super clean diet every day, start saving all of their left-over money (after bills and necessities), stop drinking alcohol cold turkey, etc. This isn’t sustainable.

Instead, start with a 5 to 15-minute workout 3-4x each week, have 1 healthy meal each day or every other day, start saving 25% more money than you used to, have 50% less alcohol, etc. The gist of the message is to start with small goals and practice them for several weeks. Increase them or decrease them accordingly. These little efforts add up tremendously.

My mother simply started walking 20 to 30 minutes several times each week and has lost 20 lbs in the last few months. She cleaned up her diet a tiny bit, although it was already very clean. Those were her only major changes. 

Little habits repeated many times over a long period lead to big changes. 

Look at the Big Picture

If you want to live a healthier lifestyle (physically, emotionally, financially, etc), pick something and do it today. Start small. Now, continue working on that thing for the rest of your life. People are often under the impression that if you “start” something, that there must also be an “end” to it (even if this is just subconscious). This isn’t the case. When it comes to our health, you simply begin doing it and continue doing it from here on out. It is continuous and does not end. 

Simple, right? Well, no. I am sure that you have all gotten frustrated when you miss a day (or a week) of your workouts. Maybe you ate like crap for several days. Maybe you spent a bunch of money that you shouldn’t have. This is NORMAL and will happen. The key here is to look at the big picture. Look at your entire life and look at all the workouts, healthy meals, and savings that you will accrue over a lifetime. Missing a few days here and there or having a few “mistakes” is not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. Pay attention to the accumulation of health over several years, not weeks. 

You have likely fallen off track from your positive habit and say to yourself, “screw it, this isn’t working for me.” Remember, all you need to do is start small and do a little bit every day. This adds up. 

This last weekend I didn’t work out at all. I didn’t even go for a walk. I just sat on my ass. In the grand scheme of things, will missing a day or 2 have a big negative impact on my health? Nope. Because I know I will work hard every week (at least 3-4 days/week) for the remainder of my life. I used to miss a lot more days at the beginning of my fitness journey. Once you experience the cumulative effect of your work after several years, you start to want to do it every day. My goal is for all of you to get to the point where you don’t beat yourself up for missing days, but rather, just enjoy each day of your life. 

Adjust Your Expectations

Holidays, big life events, the curve balls that life throws at us, work, etc. all try to catch us off guard. During these times, you must adjust your expectations of completing your positive habits. When I was building the Strength and Conditioning program for 3 months, I continued to do all of my healthy habits but modified the duration or amount that I did them. My workouts were often cut down by 30% or I skipped more days. We started to eat out more to save time. I reduced my recharge time (play, meditation, cuddles, movies, etc), but still got some in. 

When it comes to periods where other important things take up a big chunk of your life, adjust your expectations of how you will continue to complete your healthy habits. Planning to do less ahead of time helps to reduce your anxiety and sense of failure. If you are trying to do ALL of your normal tasks on top of having a sudden life change, then you are setting yourself up for disappointment. 

Remember, look at the big picture (decades), and don’t worry about the few months (or even a year) of having to do less of your healthy habit. Just get a little bit done. Some is better than none. 

We all experienced some massive shifts in our lifestyle in 2020. I think that everyone struggled with at least one (if not all) of their healthy habits. It’s okay, it was just one year! Get back to it. 

Keep Exploring How to Make Your Healthy Habit Interesting

Becoming fit, eating well, saving money, paying bills, working on your mental health, etc are all life-long things that we MUST prioritize. How we do it is up to you. 

For the sake of simplicity, I will only talk about fitness in this example. Imagine that you are 6-months into your fitness journey. You are seeing results and feeling good. Eventually, though, you may start to get bored with your training, plateau, or lose interest. It’s time to explore and try new things. There are thousands of ways to keep your body moving and staying active. Try ANYTHING that interests you. Doing so will keep you on track. Shift between fitness classes, biking, rock climbing, dancing, etc. Keep it fun and interesting.

I love the gym environment, but I have been lifting alone or with Katie in my gym for 2 years now. How do I keep it interesting? I train different methodologies throughout the year. I might do several months of isolated end-range mobility work, a few months of HIIT, half a year of Zone 2 cardiovascular training, or a couple of months of bodybuilding. Right now I am doing a blend of all of them via our Strength and Conditioning program. 

So, keep it interesting. If you don’t, things get stale and you lose interest, thus falling off track. 

What I am Excited about Most Right Now

I have been loving the Strength and Conditioning program that we just released. I may be biased, but I have never actually written down my own strength programming with this much thought-out detail and to this extent - from the warm-ups to the strength, accessory, METCONs, and cooldowns. I am 7 weeks into the 14-week program and have seen massive gains in my strength and size. Katie is seeing rapid changes in her body. Members are expressing positively how worked they are (in a good way) after each workout. The members are also loving how much variety there is in the strengthening movements, the high and low-intensity circuits, and the mobility training. There is always something new to learn and it is keeping it interesting for them. The in-depth education about every exercise helps people feel confident that they are doing the movements well.

Conclusion

Make sure to have fun with your healthy habits every day as nothing keeps us on track easier than just simply enjoying life. 

The holidays are here. Don't wait for the "New Year" and get to work NOW (one 5-minute workout, 1 healthy meal, 1 less drink, etc.) and adjust your expectations for the next several weeks. 

So, what are you starting today? Throw your excuses out the window and get to it. 

START SMALL. ONE ACTION IS ALL IT TAKES TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE. TRY OUR FREE 5 DAY LOW BACK PROGRAM!