Making New Years Resolutions STICK: Better, Stronger and More Open
- Jan 4, 2021
- 5 min read
Written by: Olesya Oligradska, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
If you’re anything like the rest of humanity, New Years always bringing a sense of refresh, renewal, & the opportunity to start things off right. Can you guess the most common resolutions? Yes, you guessed it, get in better shape & health through exercise & diet. The first few days are filled with power, release, & willingness to do whatever it takes to feel better. For some, these resolutions become a lifestyle, but let’s be real, 90% of people forget about their resolutions by the middle of January. Why does this happen? I’ve taken a deeper dive and hope that this blog will help to guide you in the right direction to once and for all do what you said you would do.
It has come clear to me that as a species, change is the hardest commitment to make. But if 2020 has taught us anything, it’s how to adapt to change. So why do we have such strong resistance to change? Quite honestly, how else do you think we become the top of the food chain on the planet with little strength but a strong thought pattern. The first way we survive is by adapting to our environment, not ourselves. The human body is designed to adapt to our environment and the food we eat. Our brain is so old that it still has its old patterns of gorging over food when it is available and has the ability to release the right chemical during a dangerous situation to survive. But in this day and age, food is radially available, and fighting the stress of traffic has become our danger.
Another way we survived is by learning to do the most amount of work for the least amount of effort, so we could do more with less energy. This is why we plateau in fitness. We train the body certain movements, and it gets stronger and more efficient at doing that movement. That is why it’s so important to always be changing up your workouts and challenge your body to step outside its comfort zone, so it has the opportunity to once again get stronger and better.
So here is the golden question, how are we ever going to stick to our resolution if these hard-wired human responses are coded into our DNA? We start by changing what we put into our bodies instead of restricting and cutting calories. We constantly change up our workouts so that we are always out of comfort zones challenging our bodies. This way, your body doesn't think it's starving and movement never becomes mastered. This way, your brain gets a chance to relax as it goes into a new way of eating and moving. This way, you are replacing instead of restricting, and like mentioned before, our brain knows how to adapt to a new environment but has a hard time changing it's biologically. This is why diets never work, and your body hits plateaus when you do the same workout all year.
Here are some ways to make these environmental changes
If you have a sweet tooth, replace these with fruit filled with vitamins & fibers, which our body needs. Fruit fell off the trees, and berries grew low on the ground so that we can have easy access to it to fuel our bodies.
If you are big on clean, quick foods, it's time to replace these with whole foods. Veggies, nuts, & clean protein. These are a much better option than a calorie restricting option in the frozen section that claims to be clean. When going to the grocery store, pretend the middle aisles in the store don't exist! Play a little game with yourself and see what kinds of yummy meals you can make with only the food you buy on the outside aisles.
When it comes to exercise, 2020 has for sure asked us to become more creative with our exercise. If you have access to a studio’s online platform that offers different types of exercise classes, I encourage you to become a member. This was you always changing your workout environment by having a different instructor and different types of exercise. Youtube is another platform that has an abundance of workouts that are both engaging and challenging. If none of these excite you, let's go back to the basics and start walking. Set a goal for yourself that will not only challenge you but also be good for your heart.
And last but not least, creating a new morning ritual that will help challenge you to explore who you are. I can’t say enough about the importance of a morning ritual. It has propelled me and my decision to go into coaching. I started asking myself the hard questions. The questions we never ask ourselves, like who do I really want to be in this world? How do I want to contribute and show up? Who do I want to help? Are my daily tasks leading me to the path that I want to be on? Are the people I surround myself with support and encourage me to follow my crazy dreams? Let’s be honest; we never put time aside for ourselves where we challenge ourselves with these types of questions. But we need to if we want to live our most authentic life.
If we are able to make these shifts in our fitness, food, and mindset, we will become unstoppable. We will be able to stick with what we promised ourselves we would do. While these suggestions are not the perfect fix, they will put you in the right space to work with that hard-wired brain of yours. If you choose these suggestions, I promise you will win every time! The brain doesn't want to be hungry and longs for nutrition filled food. It craves different movements to help keep the physical body strong. It thrives on thoughts filled with positive self-talk, encouragement, & stillness by going inward through meditation.
My wish for you is that you find your most authentic self this year! My theme for the next decade is alignment. When we align with what fuels us, we are able to take care of others and our beautiful planet.
Happy New Year!
Olesya Oligradska, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Olesya Oligradska is an exercise rehab specialist turned business and mindset mentor. Her passion lies in helping women rewire their beliefs and reclaim their worth so they can sell and grow their business with confidence. She is on a mission to help women build a life of freedom and choice through holistic growth inside and out. She is also the host of The Soulful Selling Podcast, a platform where sales is no longer a dirty word and abundance gets to be the new norm.
