At this time of year, many of us make resolutions of things we are going to give up or start doing in the hope of improving our health, appearance, job or quality of life.

Setting goals and self-improvement are all well and good.  However, for many of us, the setting of resolutions for the new year is often followed by the failure to stick to those resolutions.

I had been thinking about setting some resolutions for 2015 when I read an article about this topic in which many things rang true for me.  I have said for the past 12 years that this will be the year that I reach my goal weight and I never have.  This has resulted in 11 years of me feeling like a failure and being critical of my body and my appearance.

Enough is enough.  It’s time to stop putting it off.

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

So this year, I am going to do it.  I am setting myself some specific goals to reach by a specific deadline.

I’m heeding the advice about ‘taking baby steps’ and so I’m giving myself a full year to reach my goal.  This works out at 0.5lb per week so is more than achievable.  I’m also taking on board the idea of phrasing my goal positively rather than negatively: it’s necessary to talk about how much weight I want to get rid of (not lose, I don’t want to subconsciously try to find it again!) but I’m going to focus on how good I’ll feel when clothes start fitting me better and going shopping for an outfit makes me smile instead of cry.  I’m also going to think about how good I know I’ll feel on the inside when I’m eating well and exercising.

I’m going to have a visual reminder of my progress by putting a bead into a jar for every 1lb I shed.

So here are my initial goals:

2 weeks:             Complete week 2 of the Couch-to-5k programme

6 weeks:             3lb total weight loss

12 weeks:           Run 5km non-stop

1 Year:                Reach Goal Weight (-26lb)

I’m going to set other short-term goals as I go to help me to stay on course and I’m going to make sure that I plan how to ensure that I stay on track on a daily and weekly basis.  I’ll also be thinking of new ways to reward myself for my progress.