New Year, New You!!….????

Goodbye 2023 and hello 2024!! We all hope that you all had a happy new year and are looking forward to a new year that has more joy, hope, success, and peace for you and your family! I know, if your like me (Dr. Chris), you may have some big aspirations in goal setting and lots of new things you may want to implement to make a healthier you. There are a lot of “influencers” out there and it can be confusing to figure out what to listen to so many people will ether do nothing or try and do everything. To help you all in creating a healthier, happier, more successful you; we put together some simple hard and true don’ts and what to do instead when it comes to changing habits!

Our list of don’ts and what to do instead!

1. Don’t feel like you have to start on January 1st to be successful. Believe it or not, there is nothing really special about January 1st. There is something special that you started a new year and have motivation to change some habits! But don’t feel like you have to start right away to be successful. Holidays just happened. Kids are probably still out of routine, school is starting back up, and maybe you have to catch up with work. Give yourself some time to really think things out on what goals and changes you want to make, and time to be able to create a plan on how you are going to do this.

2. Don’t change too many things at once! Many people have a variety of goals and our passion is strong at the beginning of the year. We may go into the new year gun ho and say we are going to loose all of this weight all at once! Or we are going to get up at 5 am. every day because we want to be more productive, oh… and I heard coffee is bad for you so I’m gonna switch over to that mushroom coffee. I also heard that its good to go to sleep when the sun goes down so I’m going to go to bed waaaaayyy early! Also, I absolutely love sweets! No more sweets for me at all! And I’m gonna completely change my diet. You can see, if you take this approach, you are essentially trying to be a completely different person with completely different habits that you are used to! The thing about habits is that it is ingrained in you and it takes a considerable amount of effort to be able to change a habit. When motivation wears off… which it WILL! You are going to fail at least a couple of these changes, get discouraged and then quit! Which is most of us! First things first, have compassion and acceptance of where you are right now! Then change 2 to 3 things max about your habits that have the biggest impact. An example of this for improving your health or loosing weight lets say:

   1. Eat foods that are healthy the majority of the time. Period. Don’t get too fancy with this! Carbs, protein, and fats are ALL good for you! Eat a balanced healthy diet with a slight emphasis on getting slightly more protein than your used to and eat only until you're full. Not stuffed, but full.

   2. Exercise 2 to 4 times a week. This is life changing!

   3. Recruit help if you need it. If you have some health limitations that make the top two things hard, recruit a personal trainer. Or maybe you need a practitioner such as a wholistic neurologic chiropractor. ;)

3. Don’t go alone! Have an advocate for you and your health. Maybe it’s your chiropractor that you see once a week! (I’m done with the shameless plugs.) It could be your spouse or friend. Just someone that can ask you how you're doing with your goals. Not to be your coach or tell you that your not doing something right. Just someone to tell if you feel like your doing a good job or not. This light version of peer pressure can be just the ticket to tune into yourself and reflect on how you’re doing with your goals. If you care about your goals, and you're not overwhelmed by them because you only chose 2-3 goals to go after, you will surprise yourself in what you will do to hop back on the horse and move yourself in the right direction.

4. If your goal is something that you want to do all year long. Don’t make a goal of I’m just going to do better in this area of my life for all of next year! This type of goal is intimidating, and fatigue is sure to set in! Instead, make a goal that you can do for 12 weeks. When you reach your target in 12 weeks now your phycology can tell yourself that you are capable of doing that thing. Then you can re-evaluate and see what the next step is for you to make you a better you. Short and attainable goals is the name of the game. You want a goal that pushes you just a little bit but not too hard that you get discouraged/fatigued and quit.

5. Don’t let social pressures affect what is important to you! An example is maybe you decide to not follow my advice and you decided to go on a “fad” diet for your new year goal. Then 2 months in there is another “fad” diet that was “proven” to be more effective than the diet your on. So you switch before completing your prior goal. This, believe it or not, will rob you of that since of accomplishment that you did something that you set out to do. This won’t allow your brain to learn delayed gratification and have a healthy dopamine (or reward system) but instead train you to just chase after whatever is the next best thing.