By Jessica Dawn Starting a new diet or exercise program is easy, especially when you’ve reached a milestone in your life like a birthday or the New Year. Times like this are a great way to look back, seeing how far you’ve come in the past year and also to look ahead and decide where you want to end up next year. How many exercise programs, new diets, or weight loss programs have you started in your lifetime? Did they work? If you saw results, did you remain on that particular program for good? Take a moment and think about how often you’ve started but never finished your program. What strategies can you use to stay motivated long after the newness of your latest goals fades away? I feel there are two important steps you must take. Step one is to set goals. When you set a goal, you have a blueprint or finish line that gives you direction and focus. It only makes sense to set goals, would you build a house without a blueprint or make a new dish without a recipe-NO! So why begin any new fitness or weight loss program without the end result in mind? Having a clearly defined end result will allow you to focus like a laser beam on your goal. You’ll have moved from aimless exercise with no real point, to focused, purposeful action that produces results. Still, even with firm goals in place, it’s easy to let a hectic schedule throw you out of your fitness routine. And, then, before you know it, it’s been weeks since you’ve exercised. I cannot tell you how many goals I have set in my lifetime, only to see the excitement and energy surrounding them fade away into the horizon. Once in a while, I would find my goal sheet lying around beneath a pile of disorganized papers, written out all nice & neat, with dates and everything. I could tell that I was excited when I wrote down those goals. Regardless of the excitement I may have felt at the time, somehow my focus and drive to achieve these goals got lost in the shuffle of things to do in life. You must go beyond merely setting goals; you must use your goals as a tool for success. Setting any goal and writing it down is the easy part, the challenging part, step two, is to focus on your goal and take action until you see your desired results. I’ve outlined some strategies that we’ll review over the next few days that you can use to set goals and see them realized in your life. Strategy # 1: Believe in your Dream Recently I was speaking to a friend about one of my goals. She said: “I know you can do it, you are so persistent and you are really talented”. I thought to myself: you know she is right, I can do this. But, in the next sentence she went on to describe to me why she couldn’t reach her goals, how it just won’t work for her, and how she just isn’t able to do it. In that moment I realized how easy it is to talk to believe in someone else when we don’t believe in ourselves. One of the saddest things I see in people who want to lose weight & get fit is that they do not believe in themselves. They just don’t think they can do it and they believe it so deeply that they don’t even set goals for themselves to reach. If you make the decision to lose weight, burn fat, or get fit, you must believe in yourself from the inside out. You must believe you can achieve the best, instead of condemning yourself to have the worst. I feel there are very few people who are incapable of having a great body, but there are many people who don’t believe in themselves enough to make it happen. Believe in yourself and your goals and you will see a whole new result! Strategy # 2: Set Long Term Goals The first type of goal you should set is your “ultimate goal”. Take a moment and imagine exactly what you would like to achieve. How do you want to look, what clothing size do you want to wear. Do you want to burn fat, compete in a race, or gain strength? Your ultimate goal should be just that, the ultimate things you would like to see happen with your health. Write down your top 10 ultimate goals being as specific as possible, and set a reasonable time frame. For example, if losing weight is your ultimate goal, set a challenging ultimate goal, but also consult your doctor or to find a healthy time frame to coincides with that number. You can also do research on the internet or purchase your own info products to help you gain an understanding of how the body works. I’ve heard this statement often, although I can’t remember who wrote it: “there are no unrealistic goals, just unrealistic timeframes” and I tend to agree with that statement. If you set an unrealistic timeframe for yourself, you’ll become really discouraged with the entire process and probably give up. Another important thing to remember about long term fitness or fat loss goals is that your high school body weight should not be the “gold standard”. In fact, body weight should not be your focus at all. If you really want to do it right, you should have your body fat % measured and use that in combination with your body weight to monitor your progress. Don’t get caught up with the numbers on the scale. Measuring body fat % is actually a far better indicator of the progress you make in your fitness program. Strategy # 3: Set Progressive Goals Now that you know your ultimate goal, you can use progressive goals as increments to measure your progress. If you’d like to lose a significant amount of weight or body fat, learn to pace yourself and do it one step at a time. Progressive goals will keep you motivated to continue toward your ultimate goal by breaking down the ultimate goal into reasonable chunks. They place your mental focus on incremental progress and eliminate the feeling of being overwhelmed by the ultimate goal. An example of a progressive goal is to lose 1 pound each week for the next year (that’s 52 lbs!). A goal like that makes the idea of losing 52 lbs. sound reasonable. Or, if you want to lose body fat, break it down into more manageable chunks, like 1% a month for the next 6 months. Have small goals you can reach every week. If you set a goal to workout 5 times per week, when the end of Tuesday arrives and you haven’t exercised at all, you’ll know you have to get moving. If you are new to fitness, it’s wise to set reasonable progressive goals, like walking 10 minutes a day for 5 days per week. As you become more fit, adjust your progressive goals to accommodate your new fitness level. Keep track of the progress you make toward your goals by keeping a journal or a spreadsheet on your computer. Tracking your behavior by writing it down will improve your success rate and reduce uncertainty. It allows you to review what you’ve done and see what is working and what isn’t. When you review what you’ve done, written down in your very own handwriting, it shows you exactly where you’re meeting your goals and where you need improvement. It’s really an eye opener when you actually follow through with writing things down…..try it and see! Strategy #4: Make an effort to note your progress Accomplishing a progressive goal is rewarding, each incremental step forward makes ultimate goals seem achievable. One way to motivate yourself to accomplish progressive goals is to mentally note any progress you have made toward them. Pat yourself on the back if you feel more energetic or have tightened your belt one more notch. Congratulate yourself for eating healthy & balanced meals for an entire day. Noting these little steps of progress feels good and motivates you to continue. Focusing on your progress is the exact mental attitude you need if you really want to reach your ultimate goals. If you have a critical personality or low self-esteem, it is very easy to focus on how fat you are and criticize yourself for not reaching weekly goals. As soon as you establish your ultimate & progressive goals, you must also learn to have a “progressive” attitude. Don’t waste your time on thoughts and emotions that tear you down. Your journal contains a record of all the areas you’ve improved and the areas where you still need work. Since the journal has a record, there is no reason for you to continually focus on all your short-comings. Spend your time coming up with creative solutions that will help you reach your progressive goals and focus on everything you are doing right. You may want to set up reward system for extra motivation for reaching certain a certain goal or making it through an entire week while meeting certain criteria. Treat yourself to a massage or a day at the spa and relish every moment of your success. Things like a chair massage, pedicure, manicure, or a visit to a favorite store can be the perfect motivation. Your rewards should reinforce your goals; things like massage and spa days are beneficial to your body and help you to feel good physically. Conversely, a reward such as eating a whole pizza or gallon of ice cream will only cause you to veer off the path to your ultimate goal. Strategy # 5: Be grateful for how far you’ve come Gratitude is a powerful emotion that super charges your brain for success. Research at U.C. Davis accredits gratitude with improved health, reduced stress, and a higher level of overall well-being. Review the following: Highlights from the Research Project on Gratitude and Thankfulness performed at U of C, Davis Dimensions and Perspectives of Gratitude Co-Investigators: Robert A. Emmons, University of California, Davis & Michael E. McCullough, University of Miami Synopsis. Gratitude is the “forgotten factor” in happiness research. We are engaged in a long-term research project designed to create and disseminate a large body of novel scientific data on the nature of gratitude, its causes, and its potential consequences for human health and well-being. Scientists are latecomers to the concept of gratitude. Religions and philosophies have long embraced gratitude as an indispensable manifestation of virtue, and an integral component of health, wholeness, and well-being. This project is supported by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation of Radnor, PA. Gratitude Interventions and Psychological and Physical Well-Being In an experimental comparison, those who kept gratitude journals on a weekly basis exercised more regularly, reported fewer physical symptoms, felt better about their lives as a whole, and were more optimistic about the upcoming week compared to those who recorded hassles or neutral life events (Emmons & McCullough, 2003). A related benefit was observed in the realm of personal goal attainment: Participants who kept gratitude lists were more likely to have made progress toward important personal goals (academic, interpersonal and health-based) over a two-month period compared to subjects in the other experimental conditions. A daily gratitude intervention (self-guided exercises) with young adults resulted in higher reported levels of the positive states of alertness, enthusiasm, determination, attentiveness and energy compared to a focus on hassles or a downward social comparison (ways in which participants thought they were better off than others). There was no difference in levels of unpleasant emotions reported in the three groups. Participants in the daily gratitude condition were more likely to report having helped someone with a personal problem or having offered emotional support to another, relative to the hassles or social comparison condition. In a sample of adults with neuromuscular disease, a 21-day gratitude intervention resulted in greater amounts of high energy positive moods, a greater sense of feeling connected to others, more optimistic ratings of one’s life, and better sleep duration and sleep quality, relative to a control group. This study is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the benefits you’ll receive from radiating gratitude for all that’s good in your life. Be grateful for the health you do have, for the activities you can do, and for all the times when your body was strong and capable. Some good statements to repeat daily are: I am grateful and pleased with how I look today. I feel thankful for all that I can already do, and for the things I plan to achieve. Make a gratitude journal and record ten things you are grateful for each day. You’ll be amazed at how your list grows and empowers you to succeed. You can focus on your fitness program, your health, reaching your goals, or whatever you feel thankful for that day. If you invest your time being grateful, you’ll be amazed at the return you receive and the goodness that spills over into every area of your life. Don’t overlook the power of gratitude! Strategy #6: Don’t give up Not everyone reaches their goals in the time frame they want. That doesn’t make giving up an option. It’s not called an “ultimate goal” for nothing. Your ultimate goal should challenge you like never before, and if you don’t make it right away, forgive yourself, pick yourself up and go at it again. If you really want to reach your ultimate goals, you must be willing to go through all the ups and downs that come with it. Sometimes it will be really difficult to continue forward, but once you reach the finish line, it will be worth it! Don’t Quit. Don’t quit when the tide is lowest, For it’s just about to turn; Don’t Quit over doubts and questions, For there’s something you may learn. Don’t quit when the night is darkest, For it’s just a while ’til dawn; Don’t quit when you’ve run the farthest, For the race is almost won. Don’t quit when the hill is steepest, For your goal is almost nigh; Don’t quit, for you’re not a failure Until you fail to try. ~ Author unknown~ Jessica Dawn is a fitness professional who has been studying health & fitness for over 10 years. In addition to actively participating in fitness, Jessica has a degree in Kinesiology (exercise science) which allows her to understand both the scientific and behavioral aspects of weight loss and fitness. If you would like to receive a free 5 day fitness eCourse from Jessica, visit http://www.visfitness.com Jessica Dawn is a leader in teaching health & fitness through the internet. You can also visit her blog @ http://www.visfitness.blogspot.com and learn proven stratgies to make your fitness program effective. To receive a free 5 day fitness eCourse, visit: http://www.visfitness.com In this course, Jessica will show you how to develop a lifestyle of health, vitality, and fitness. She answers the questions you have about life-long weight control and resolves the roadblocks you may have faced in the past. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jessica_Dawn http://EzineArticles.com/?Life-Long-Strategies-For-Healthy-Living&id=394273 ambien dependence zolpidem dosage for tbi ambien discount online zolpidem dosage
