Happy New Year. I wish you a healthy, joyful 2025.
Chances are you’ve made some New Year’s resolutions. Pew Research Center says that 52% of women over the age 50 set resolutions to lose weight and get fit.
Awesome! I love the desire.
BUT… as a confidence coach for women, I’m not a big believer in setting New Year’s resolutions. Why? They rarely work. (Have you hit your diet and fitness goals from your 2024 resolutions, your 2023 or 2022 resolutions?)
Your success is my highest priority, and if you’ve gone down this road in the past and bombed, this newsletter is for you.
Resolutions are nothing more than bouts of willpower exerted at the gym and dinner table. Willpower never lasts. Lasting change happens when we transform our insides by developing our character, dissolving our negative self-talk and gaining unshakable confidence.
New Year’s resolutions have no strategy for changing our insides.
“Accomplishing a goal is not just about habit formation. It’s about transcending your identity” – James Clear
Below is a sample of my proven strategies that helped me transform my insides, successfully overcome a life long addiction to sugar (I’m 24 years clear off all processed sugar and junk food), get fit and even win a gold medal in Olympic weightlifting at age 64.
My strategies are unconventional. I call them “mental push-ups” because they are hard and will make you uncomfortable. Please try to be openminded as you read them. They work.
Still with me? Great. Let’s jump in:
Mental Push-up #1: Set goals and make decisions based on your core values, not on a date on calendar.
On new year’s day women make what I call “gotta, gotta, gotta” resolutions: “I gotta lose 40 lbs. for my son’s wedding, I gotta get rid of my Type 2 diabetes” etc. YES! I want you to look and feel great for your wedding and YES! get rid of your diabetes but your “gotta gotta gotta” goals set on January 1st never last.
For decades I set “gotta, gotta, gotta” goals on January 1st to stop binging on sugar forever, get fit and lose 20 lbs. It never happened. (It was an excuse to binge eat, drink too much, and be a couch potato all through December.) I had no core values. Instead I was relying on the calendar to fix me.
Confident women set goals based on their core values and begin their journey of change immediately.
Mental Push-up #2: Develop juicy “WHYs”.
Losing 40 pounds because you have Type 2 diabetes is critical for your health, but frankly it’s not a sexy reason WHY for losing weight. It’s kinda boring.
Dig deep and find exciting reasons for why you want to change. This is hard work but it’s worth it. Your juicy WHYs will keep you motivated on those down days when you feel like quitting.
While coaching with me this client developed very meaningful, personal WHYs. Here’s one: “I was a chubby little girl and an overweight wallflower as a teenager. Today I want to redeem those lost years. I want to look beautiful and feel fit when I walk into a room.” WOW. Yes! That’s a juicy WHY.
If you don’t have exciting, juicy WHYs to keep you motivated, eventually you’re going to fail.
Mental Push-up #3: Never compare yourself to others.
Society, social media and commercials tell us that to be
successful, we must be pretty and super thin. |
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Oh please.
Ladies, never ever buy into these messages. If you do, you risk feeling like a failure for having a less than perfect body. (No one has a perfect body.) You lose your confidence, feel “less than” and unworthy.
As a confidence coach I am always rigorously honest: This is being mean and disrespectful to yourself.
Instead set realistic expectations based on your core values, not society’s values. Set goals that you will feel proud of, goals that excite you, realistic goals that you can maintain for the rest of your life.
Never compare yourself to others. Whenever you step up to the “Comparison Table”, you will always lose.
Mental Push-up #4: Throw away the bathroom scale and pleeeease stop looking in the mirror.
- Your self-worth and success are not determined by a number on the bathroom scale.
- Duct tape a bed sheet to your full-length mirror from the neck down. Your self-worth is not determined by the size of your hips, chest or thighs. Put your make-up on and then go live your day focused on growing mentally stronger and more confident and getting fit physically.
In my coaching program I teach women to measure their wellness success according to these three criteria. I invite you to do the same:
1. How do your pants fit this month?
2. How is your level of energy throughout the day?
3. Are your mobility, flexibility, and posture improving?
Strong is the new skinny.
Mental Push-up #5: Dump the negativity.
To be a success at anything ya gotta let go of your toxic self-talk.
- I’ve tried every diet under the sun, and they don’t work.
- I’m a failure.
- I’m destined to be fat for the rest of my life.
- I don’t deserve to be pretty.
Please, right now commit to eliminating this destructive self-talk. Your negative thoughts keep you in a victim role. Replace them with these empowering statements. (Yes, positive affirmations work if you believe in them.)
- I’m excited to be getting healthier every day.
- I don’t have to go to the gym… I GET to go to the gym.
- I love and respect myself.
When you master your negative self-talk, you have slayed your greatest foe.
“When was the last time you won at anything
by saying I can’t?” – Laura Eiman
Mental Push-up #6: Get help when you need it, from a therapist, a coach, or a trustworthy person who is a good listener.
Life is hard. Confident women understand that it’s not a sign of weakness to ask for help. (I reach out for help from my support team all the time.)
If you suffer from trauma in the past, I encourage you to work with a therapist who can help you look at your wounds, clean them out and heal.
I was an emotional eater who consumed enormous quantities of sugar and junk food to medicate myself when I was sad or mad. Therapy and Overeaters Anonymous taught me how to move beyond stuffing my face with sugar and instead to process my feelings and then move on. Reach out if you need help. You deserve to look and feel great.
Whatever this last year held for you, whether it be full of pain or pleasure, I send you love and well wishes for a healthy, confident 2025.
Maybe my mental push-ups are too unconventional for you, too hard, too scary. Maybe you still want to keep your new year’s resolutions.
If so, please consider this:
If your mindset doesn’t change, if you don’t take a radically different approach to reaching your goals, you won’t have a new year, you’ll just have another year.
(Partial credit for this quote goes to Gregory Dickow.)
I’m always here for you.
#ohyesyoucan
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