Clinical Conversations

‘Tis the season for making resolutions, focusing on self-improvement, and charting the course for the year ahead.  What are you doing to improve yourself in 2018?  One small step that can make a tremendous impact in many areas of your life is simply to establish good self-accountability.  How credible are you?  Many of us are loyal to commitments we make to our friends, family, and coworkers but we may routinely neglect to fulfill our promises to ourselves.  When was the last time you put off a work out, failed to follow through with a diet goal, or simply lost momentum with a good training program?

Creating the discipline of good habits is beneficial to all of us!  Whether you are looking to reboot your home exercise routine or seeking to redeem your diet after an avalanche of holiday feasts – consistency is the key.  Daily diligence defines the difference between crashing through a fad and building a foundation of good habits that can improve your life.  In some areas of life, this need for consistency is obvious, for example: brushing your teeth.  If you wish to have fresh breath for your date on Friday night, is brushing your teeth just once on Tuesday going to cut it?  Nope!  Good oral hygiene requires that twice a day commitment every day of the week.  Other areas of our health will benefit from applying this daily discipline as well.

So, here are 5 easy ways to help build credibility with yourself and to insure you follow through with all of those good intensions.

• Make an appointment with yourself – Schedule time on your calendar each day, even if it is just 20 minutes, to do your home exercise program. Honor this time the same way you would honor any other medical appointment.
• Reward yourself when you follow through – Improving your health is its own reward, but you may need other tangible incentives to keep you motivated on your course. Make a barter system with yourself – “For every 10 minutes I spend on this treadmill, I will get 10 minutes of guilt-free Netflix ve
• Get friends and family onboard – One of my patients found the best way to correct his posture was to recruit his children, “It’s open season, kids – anytime you can catch me slouching, call me on it and I will give you a dollar.”
• Keep it visible – Put those running shoes in a high visibility area of your home so that you have a visual reminder to gear up and get outside for a jog. Are you using a theraband for your exercise routine? Don’t hide it – hang it in plain sight so that you are prompted to put it to good use!
• Teach what you’ve learned – If you have mastered a new exercise or healthy recipe, share it! Pay it forward and reap the benefit of better understanding through teaching. You know you have truly mastered a technique when you can teach it effectively to someone else.

So let me know – what do you do to encourage yourself to follow through with your commitments to yourself?  Have you tried any of these suggestions before?  Do you have new ideas you’d like to share with us? Let’s support each other in making 2018 a year of abundant good health!