This is the time when people make new year resolutions.
Like many others, I’ve never been able to completely resolve to do what I had vowed to accomplish at the beginning of each year.
It has come to a point where I used to joke that my new year resolution is not to make any new year resolutions.
That was in the past, now I’m better at it.
The trick is not to impose unreasonably difficult goals on yourself.
Sure, have yourself a challenging enough list of resolutions but forget those BHAGs coined by what I suspect to be used-car-salesmen-or-journalists/writers-turned-motivational-speakers (usually Americans). In case you haven’t heard BHAG, is an acronym for Big Hairy Audacious Goals. Sounds great as a marketing term. You must know that many of these comedians who write books and spout wisdom which you must pay to be exposed to had never project-managed any measurable, trackable professional engagements in their lives, so don’t be distracted by fancy marketing terms concocted by jokers sitting in front of their keyboards. (Most of these people just make money via the generation of words – be they spoken or written.) The fancy terms they create are not going to get you to realize the attainment of your resolutions.
The key is to change the way you manage resolutions. Start by being realistic. If you are an 800-pound gorilla and you want to become a svelte 80-pounder, well baby, it just ain’t gonna happen ok? At least, not overnight.
If you’re thinking of going on yet another new diet, forget it. Why enrich writers of diet books? I am not a gambling man, but I will bet my last cent that you will break your diet before Chinese New Year, which is the next big festival coming up. (Supermarkets are already selling Chinese new year goodies.)
Most diets are deprivation programs, rather than diets. Say you always eat 5000 calories at a meal, yeah, really pigging out, like lots of people do today, especially at eat-all-you-can buffets, but if you were told that you should consume just 500 calories per meal instead, what would happen? You will feel absolutely deprived. You may be disciplined enough to force yourself to eat just 500 calories per meal, but it’s a matter of time your resolve gives way and you end up bingeing and stuffing your face to make up for lost time and as a result, putting back what little you have managed to lose in the last few days when you were on that diet in addition to adding on more weight!
But if you adopt a more realistic approach and try shaving off say just 200 calories off each meal, you won’t feel deprived.
All you have to do is to make a conscious effort to eat just 80% of the amount of what you normally eat and over time, that 20% you put away at each meal will add up and result in your losing weight.
It’s a gradual process which can be helped if accompanied by a slight increase in physical activity, replacing sugar with sugar substitutes and cutting down on carbohydrate intake.
Your success will inspire you to maintain your new eating habit. And soon you may well transform into a svelte 80-pounder. Who knows.
Monumental change is often the best way to bring about quick, if not, brutal results, and is often necessary, but for most individuals, when it comes to personal challenges like losing weight, often, a slower, more realistic, incremental type of change is what is needed for change to stick.
With that, I wish you a very happy and successful 2015!