And just like that, we are well on our way into 2020. Closing the chapter on the last decade, I used the time to reflect back on my personal journey through a lens. Had I evolved? Had I achieved what I sought out to achieve? Often times we put too much pressure on ourselves to accomplish greatness and set expectations that are sometimes not achievable.
On the eve of 2020, I made a pact to myself, that instead of making resolutions, I set goals to ensure that I make the right choices and look to spend more time on myself. In today’s post, I am sharing how I’m keeping myself accountable in these New Years’ goals.
Make the Right Choices For You
Instead of setting unrealistic goals when it came to food achievements and diets, I wanted to focus on making the right choices and that meant nothing more than going back to the basics. Thinking about foods with simple ingredients and ingredients I can pronounce.
Influenced by Sarah Adler, author of Simply Real Health, this year I’m focusing on understanding what “healthy food” actually means and how I can apply it to my everyday. I’ve started to listen to my body, understand what it likes and what it doesn’t like, instead of trying to think I know better than it.
To start the process, I focused on recipes that were simple and packed with ingredients that were going to serve as a source of energy vs. combat me. From there, I made the conscious effort to start listening to what my body was telling me. Cooking and eating should be something we all enjoy and not feel like a daunting task. While I understand that this journey and process will take some time, starting the year with two steps in the right direction is all I need.
Spend More Time in Recovery Mode
About two years ago I changed my perspective on working out and being in the gym. I started a program that I truly fell in love with and have never felt stronger. During that process, what I’ve neglected to do was spend more time in recovery mode. Who here skips stretching after a workout? Me!!
Well, I learned the hard way, that your recovery is part of the process. In fact, it’s an essential part of the process. So that I can grow to an even stronger place in my personal fitness journey, this year I am scheduling more time for recovery sessions no matter how short or long. Each week, just like I do with my workouts, I’ll be scheduling time in my calendar for recovery sessions starting with 10 minutes sessions twice a week.
Once a week, I have a date with myself, the bath and some bath bombs! Taking that 10 minutes and soaking my muscles will help soothe any body aches and help the restoring process following a workout.
In addition to that, I’ll schedule a time for heat therapy with an herbed heat pack or a Thai massage ball.
The heat pack helps promote blood flow and helps any tight muscles to relax. This heat pack fragrance is a 2-for-1 allowing your muscles to relax while enjoying the scent of the mixed herbs in the pack. It’s heat therapy and herbed therapy in one!
Make the Conscious Effort
One of my final resolutions is my personal impact on the issue of waste and recycling. While that’s a somewhat large and open-ended statement, I chose to focus it on my personal impact on recycling, composting and beyond. All of those things used to sound like chores and extremely consuming tasks, when in fact, they aren’t.
This year I’m taking the time to be more thoughtful and conscious of my waste — we all should be. For me, the process started with something as simple as reusable straws, and not just using them in my own home. Taking them with me to work, when I travel, music festivals, etc — it’s not hard to do and that already is an improvement. This process of setting goals is all about setting short term goals for the long term gain!
