So, here we are, two weeks into the New Year resolutions. How are they working out for you?
Personally, I am not a fan of New Year resolutions. I try to promote daily improvement. Why wait for a new calendar year to make changes. If you make resolutions, great! If not, I hope you are making daily efforts toward self-improvement. Be your best today; be better tomorrow!!
I LOVE the movie What About Bob? Bill Murray and Richard Dreyfuss are hilarious. But, there is a great lesson in this movie. I use the movie in a course I teach called “Exercise Motivation & Adherence.” The lesson in What About Bob? is…BABY STEPS. The best route to big change involves small steps. Baby steps to weight loss. Baby steps to better relationships. Baby steps to learning. It is amazing what we can accomplish in small, incremental steps.
If you buy into my concept of “well-centered fitness” try this for me: Write a goal for each of the key dimensions–spiritual, physical, intellectual, emotional, and social. Better yet, make this a vision statement for each dimension. Write ’em down. Keep ’em somewhere visible. Once you have written them down, take steps daily toward accomplishing them. Make sure to make your steps small and sustainable. Success begets success. Make them ridiculously easy to accomplish and nearly impossible at which to fail. The catch is that these small changes need to become daily habits, and you need to build on these. Trying to lose body fat? What are small things you can do daily? Want to educate yourself in a specific area? Explore ways to add to your knowledge daily.
I like beer. I don’t drink a lot of beer, but I like the taste. I love living in the Pacific Northwest and experiencing the many difference styles and flavors. A few years ago the IPAs started to accumulate around my middle. Beer became one obvious baby step toward losing body fat. I quickly found that light beers tasted horribly (or, better, lacked any taste). So, we began looking at the calorie content in beers. I soon learned that for each ABV (% alcohol by volume) labeled on the beer, there were 30 kcal per 12 oz bottle. Many of those IPAs I liked had upward to as many as 8% ABV–240 kcal!!! Ouch!! So, we experimented and found our sweet spot to be between 4.5 and 5.5% ABV. Low enough in calories and high enough in taste. The weight dropped off. Now anything above this range tastes too strong. We have also discovered an increasing number of “session” beers (less than 5% ABV) that are simply awesome. Session IPAs taste pretty damn good to me.
These are numerous other examples of small changes you can make. The point is: small changes add up and become easier to maintain as time passes. The compounding effect of making small changes is tremendous.
Over time, I will be sharing ideas of to make our lives more “well-centered.” Yes, ours! This is really my journey. I am hoping that you will come along for the ride.
Start today! Carpe friggin’ diem!