As we all enter a new year I wanted to share a few thoughts about successfully planning for 2018 to be a year of great health for all of us. Here are several exercises to help you maximize the opportunity to enjoy a healthy 2018.
Exercise #1 Jumpstarting the first 90 days of 2018
Let’s start with getting some momentum this year by helping gain control and a fresh perspective on your most important health goals. These may include losing weight, reducing your risk of heart disease or diabetes, getting better control of a medical condition, reducing the number of medications you take or just feeling great with increased energy and vitality. Start by completing the following exercise to really clarify and crystalize your goals going into the year.
Step 1 – Review the last 90 days. List the successes you’ve had related to your emotional, physical or spiritual health. List everything you can think of from completing your annual physical, losing weight, eating better, sleeping more, strengthening an important relationship or feeling that you have deepened your faith connection. Make the list as long as possible. Take the time to really celebrate everything you can here and realize that you have likely succeeded in improving several areas your health.
Next list each area you have perhaps slipped behind during these past 90 days. Did you miss your annual exam? Gain some of your weight back? Get too busy to exercise or slack off on your diet. Is there an important relationship you’ve neglected? List every area you know you could have done better
Step 2 – What about right now. What are all the things you are doing now to improve your health. Are you starting to exercise, eat better, sleep more, spend time with those you love? What are you excited about right now regarding your health? Did you just complete your exam and are following a plan to improve your health? List the successful healthy behaviors and choices doing today.
Then write down those areas where you need to give more attention to reach the level of good health you are looking for. See if these aren’t some of the same things you listed for the past 90 days. That’s OK, this is an effort to surface them and finally correct them in a way that is effective, fun and lasting.
Step 3 – Now look at the next 90 days. Where do you want to be? What behaviors have you successfully turned around. Exercising daily for 30 minutes? Choosing healthy food every time, you sit down to eat? Getting to bed on time and getting 7 hours of sleep every night? Scheduling your physical exam to be sure you are on top of your physical health? Drinking water? Date nights? I don’t know what it is for you, but picture yourself with all the energy and stamina you need to perform at your best. Deep relationships. This is where you are going.
At the end of this exercise take the time to reflect on where you’ve been, where you are now and where you are going to be in 90 days. Know that you can get there, read on…
Exercise #2 Dangers, Opportunities and Strengths
Ok, now that you’ve got a sense of direction and momentum, let’s look at why you might not have achieved some of the goals you’ve had for your health before. There are dozens of possible of reasons, but here I want you to focus on what might have held you back, recognize the options you have and the personal resources that will assure your success this time.
Step 1 – What has prevented you from succeeding in the past? There are likely reasons why you don’t make good food choices or don’t schedule time to exercise or haven’t invested in an important relationship or explored a spiritual connection. Maybe you are afraid of failing or being disappointed. You are disciplined and successful in your professional life, but this health thing has got you stumped. Maybe you are afraid the tradeoff won’t be worth it. That pleasure of good health won’t be worth the pain of not eating rich food or drinking alcohol each night. That if you tackle that relationship, it might create a loss so you simply accept mediocrity. You don’t like getting your annual physical, it’s embarrassing, or inconvenient and who wants “that” exam anyway?
List all the “dangers’ or reasons you can think of why you are reluctant to work toward succeeding in improving your health you can think of. When you do I think you’ll notice they all come down to fear. Fear of loss. Fear of pain. Fear of failure. You’ve been able to push through fear in every other area of your life. What is more important than your good health. There is no greater tragedy if you lose it, especially because of neglect.
Step 2 – Now Think of all the opportunities you have. You have access to the best healthcare on the planet and can get a comprehensive annual physical to identify issues early and protect your health. You have a gym on every corner, easily accessible home gym equipment, thousands of books and websites on healthy eating. You have all the information and support you need to be successful at improving your health once and for all. List all the opportunities you have. Maybe it’s a home gym, or walking trails by the beach or access to a personal trainer. Write them all down and I bet you’ll be blown away by all the opportunity.
Step 3 – Now list all your personal strengths. What are all the strengths you have than can be brought to bear to successfully get this health thing handled. Maybe they are financial strengths to afford a personal trainer and gym membership. Maybe it’s personal creativity in finding a solution to your time demands. The ability to prioritize? Set and meet goals or deadlines? Collaborate with experts? Maybe you’re great at numbers and can strategize a detailed path forward to follow? Do you see things in systems? Every strength you have developed in your personal and professional life is available to help you succeed in optimizing your good health in 2018.
At the end of this exercise you should realize that it’s only fear that has held you back from long term success in the past, and that you have the strengths it takes to benefit from all the opportunities available to succeed in 2018. So let’s use this final exercise to get specific with some goals and planning…
Exercise #3 Personal Roadmap to Great Health
So now that you’ve gotten some perspective, developed a little momentum and seen that once you break through the fear, you have everything you need to succeed in 2018 optimizing your health, let’s get specific. There is an old Chinese proverb that says, “Be not afraid of going slowly; be only afraid of standing still”. Let’s start building a simple roadmap you can follow to success. There needs to be a destination to your journey.
Step 1 – What are the top 3-5 areas you want to focus on this year?
OK let’s get started. First select the 3-5 areas you want to focus on improving in 2018. Maybe you want to lose weight, reduce your cholesterol, or lower your blood pressure. Maybe you want to consistently choose healthy foods to eat or exercise daily? Perhaps there’s a relationship you know needs to be improved and you want to focus attention on it. Maybe you want to work on improving your sleep or being consistent with your medication or supplements. Greater energy?
Whatever your individual areas are, make a list now in no particular order, just get them down. If you come up with more than five I suggest you whittle it down to the fewest areas that will deliver the greatest payoff for you physically and mentally.
Step 2 – Describe the reality of how each area is right now. For example if you are 30 pounds heavier than you’d like you might say something like “I am 30 pounds overweight and feel sluggish and without the energy I want to enjoy the things I want to do and perform at the level I know I can”. For each of the areas you listed in Step 1, write out a short description of your current situation. Be totally honest with yourself and as descriptive as you can. You need to have a clear view of reality at this point.
Step 3 – Describe your goal and desired outcome for each area on your list. Again, as an example with weight loss, “I am at my perfect weight and feel great. It’s so easy to stay here because of who I am and I have so much energy I pop out of bed in the morning ready to go, am performing at peak levels and really love enjoying my favorite hobbies again.” See yourself exactly as you want to be and you can almost feel the success. This is where you want to combine everything you’ve learned about your health from your annual physical with how you feel and your personal priorities. Take the time to create a vivid picture of where you want to go.
Step 4 – How are you going to get from where you are now to where you want to be? This is the beginning of your action plan. You need a detailed route to be sure you arrive at your destination. Yogi Berra is quoted as saying, “You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you’re going, because you might just get there”. So think through how, for each area, you can take action immediately each day to make your way toward your goal. It could be as simple as drinking a bottle of water before each meal or getting to bed 30 minutes earlier or getting up an hour earlier. You might limit yourself to a single glass of wine or a single cup of coffee each day. Perhaps you’ll need to get 10,000 steps daily or go to your calendar and schedule your annual exam. Whatever the action steps are for each area list them now.
Sometimes setting “rules” for yourself is a helpful technique. It is sometimes difficult to demand 12 months of discipline in any area of your life, but if you set a rule to strictly follow for 12 weeks, you only need enough discipline to get you to the point where your behavior becomes a habit. At that point it often becomes automatic and who you are.
Step 5 – Order your areas into a roadmap to arrive at your destination. There is likely a logical order to the areas you selected so than it makes sense to accomplish one before the other. For example if you want to lose weight and reduce your blood pressure it would be best to place losing weight ahead of lowering you blood pressure. Doing this will create an action plan for what you need to do each day that leads to your ultimate destination of great health. Now all you need to do is place things on your calendar and daily to-do list, then get started.
I hope these exercises help you jumpstart your plan for making 2018 the healthiest year ever!
Jim