Best Year Ever

I have decided that this year is going to be my Best Year Ever!

At the beginning of the year I started to get disappointed in myself. I have failed so many times at trying to achieve my goals. I am just over the hump of mid forties and there are still a couple of goals that I have not yet achieved. One is to lose weight and gain health for good – to maintain a healthy body weight. The other is to write a book. Oh there are a lot more unachieved goals but those two are the most thought about.

So now that I have reached 46 years old – what am I going to do about it?

That’s the question I am asking myself. Am I going to continue in this cycle of trying , failing, not trying, getting discouraged then trying , failing and so on?

Well, I have decided that this year the ‘trying’ is going to stop and the ‘doing’ and ‘achieving’ is going to start!

This year is going to be different.

I am not going to settle for an average year.

It’s going to be the Best Year Ever!

So I sat down in January to ponder this. I have to do things differently if I want a different outcome. Obviously what I have been doing in the past for 46 years hasn’t worked. It took 46 years to work that out! We know this don’t we but for some reason we don’t listen to wisdom. We keep doing what we have always been doing and think we can have a better outcome. Well this year that is going to change. I am going to learn how to do things differently. I am going to learn to love goal setting. This is a big thing for me. I have despised those words – goal setting. In my mind those words speak volumes, they speak of disappointment, failure and a feeling of ‘running to the hills’. Anyone say an “amen”?

Albert Einstein – Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Here is it – the reason I was failing at achieving my goals and dreams was…… mixed up priorities. My priorities didn’t match my goals and dreams. Oh boy, does that sound simple when you write it out. But I think that this happens to many people – our priorities are not matching up with our goals and dreams.

I sat down and wrote out what my priorities were – how much time did I spend on each area of my life. I realised, when I made myself to look at this truthfully, that health was low down on my priority list. Whereas family and work was very high. That had to change. I needed retrain my mind to grade health as higher on my “to do” list than family and work. That’s really hard for a mum. But it needed to be done otherwise I am going to keep on putting my health goals at the end of the list.

If health was going one of the top priorities then what does my day look like? Well, instead of waking up and getting to work first thing at 7.30am – I walk for 40 – 60 minutes first. I had always considered the mantra of “work first then play” and considered walking or health related exercise as “play”. I had to change my mind on that belief. It’s okay to walk first then work. In fact it is more beneficial to me.

I have also decided that eating a set amount daily calories is important. That means that the time it takes to enter my food onto My Fitness Pal is important. Other things and people can wait until I have done that. Because health is now a top priority for me.