After the recent Christmas gatherings, now is the perfect time to reset the mindset, contemplate and prepare yourself for the New Year. Let us move on, grow and change how we think about setting New Year’s resolutions.

Instead of setting new goals for yourself once a year, be prepared to reset your goals and game plan, every day. Achieving a positive lifestyle change is a consistent process that takes a lot of dedication and effort. You need to have a strong foundation of lifestyle knowledge, skill sets (for eating, movement, and rest), and strong social support so you can effectively create new lifestyle habits for long-term sustainability. 

Reset your goals

• Fix your workspace or office where you can effectively do goal-setting, lifestyle planning, and personal growth activities.
• Before you set your major goals for next year, take some time this week to assess what happened to you this whole year. Empower yourself by identifying your achievements when it comes to your work, wellness, finances, and relationships.  Learn from your past experiences and then think of the things that you still need to work on so you can do better for this coming year.
• Inspire yourself by visualizing listing down things that you want to achieve this coming year. What projects do you need to work on? What do you want to achieve when it comes to your health and fitness? What are the things that you want your loved ones to experience with you?
• Share your goals and plans with your family, friends, and life or health coach.
• Balance your day by creating daily action plans and applying effective time management to accomplish your tasks (work, self-care, health and fitness, household chores and errands, recreational time, family bonding, social connections, and spiritual growth).
• Be prepared to assess and reassess your lifestyle, fitness, and health progress weekly, monthly or quarterly. 

Invest in health and fitness

• Invest in your digital needs, like excellent WiFi subscriptions and gadgets that are important in your daily work, wellness activities, and social needs.
• Check your kitchen, pantry, and your fridge and decide on healthy foods that you need to keep at home. Identify expenses that can negatively affect your health like unnecessary expenses buying junk foods, sweets, processed foods alcohol. Spend more on healthy foods like vegetables, fruits, whole grains, seeds, nuts, and good quality seafood, poultry, and meat.
• Create a budget for your monthly fitness activities, exercise gadgets, clothes, and wellness experiences like spa and wellness vacations. You might want to consider upgrading your exercise props and equipment by getting a new exercise machine like a treadmill, indoor cycling bike, heavier dumbbell sets, and a good quality exercise mat.
• Go to your bedroom and see how you can still improve your sleep quality and nighttime habits.  Maybe you need to rearrange things, redecorate the room and purchase a medium-firm mattress for better sleep comfort and spinal alignment.
• Avail of health insurance for medical emergencies and regular medical checkups.

Prepare your body

• You can do light to moderate exercises this week if you are still on a vacation and still taking a break from your usual fitness routines. Your body still needs to move even just by doing brisk walking or bodyweight exercises for resistance training to avoid fitness level decline and muscle soreness once you resume your regular activities. Then plan and pursue your well-balanced, effective fitness activities for next year by confirming your regular online or in-person exercise appointments with your coach and /or updating your other exercise subscriptions.
• Recent food intake might have exceeded the daily recommendations to maintain or lose weight because of the holiday season. Avoid drastic eating quick-fix strategies that can only work in a short period of time. Change your eating mindset by focusing on healthy and realistic lifestyle plans like eliminating unhealthy foods at home, buying healthy foods, and fixing your food menu for the week.
• Practice healthy sleeping habits as early as now by going to bed and waking up earlier than usual so you can do more things in the morning like exercise, preparing healthy foods, and effectively planning your day.
• Taking care of your whole body also includes beauty and personal care and hygiene (dental, hair, and skincare). Continue or upgrade your self-care habits this year by improving your nighttime beauty rituals, more consistent appointments with your dermatologist, dentist, and hairstylist.

Give importance to emotional and mental health

• Always be inspired to improve your health and well-being so you can direct your energy to doing more purposeful and meaningful activities that can affect all the people around you.
• Prevent and manage stress in your life by practicing self-expression (through exercising, journalling, communicating with others and/or doing artwork),  self-care (exercise, beauty care, spa, massage) and mindfulness (meditation, mindful eating, and mind-body exercises like yoga).
• Regularly connect and openly express yourself with your loved ones. Share your goals and plans for next year and say how can they support you in your journey. Always show gratitude for how they positively affect your life this whole year.
• Find the balance between physical and virtual means of connecting with people to beat the Zoom fatigue. Find safer means this coming year to meet up with your family, friends, co-workers, and/or clients even once in a while.

I am always looking forward to being a part of your lifestyle transformation! Have a healthy and happy New Year to all!

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