If your goals include losing weight, increasing energy, improving mental clarity and even relieving chronic health symptoms — you’ve got to focus on creating balance in life, rather than just a one quick-fix-solution.

You can comb through all the statistics and suggestions published around this time of year on how to stick to your resolutions, but the hard truth is, 92% of us will quit by February 1st.

That is, unless, you get that, “How you do anything is how you do everything.”

How you manage any area of life, circumstance or experience, is very likely how you manage every area of life.

Balance Matters

If you’re out of balance in one area, research shows your out of balance in other areas too.

Think about it, if you’re stressed out at work, over-tired because you’re not getting enough sleep, or just feeling defeated because you can never stick to your goals to get the results you most want, do you think you’ll stick to your resolution to eat healthy when you feel overtired after work?

Do you think you’ll stick with getting to the gym, like you’ve said you would many times over, if stress rules your relationships or troubles with finances distracts you?

As a new client said to me, “I’m “successful” in all ways that say I’m successful, but I’m overweight. I’m addicted to food, I’m stressed out and I’m working myself to death. This does not feel successful, it feels crazy.”

The impact of the continual trying and the continual failing wreaks havoc on ‘you’ mentally and emotionally.

The National Institute of Health defines the impact of this recurring high and low cycle as a psychological condition. The question you want to ask is, how does this pattern impact you mentally and emotionally over the long haul?

To break through defeating patterns and an out-of-balance life, balance is your answer and The Wheel of Life is your starting assessment tool.

The Wheel of Life

Last week you clarified your goals for 2018. This week you’ll use The Wheel of Life, a useful tool I use with all my private clients, to make sure that your goals support results and balance.

The Wheel of life shows where you’re thriving in life, and where you need to extend more attention and effort, in an aerial overview kind of way, which is often amiss for many in the goal setting process.

In this assessment exercise, you want to make sure your wheel, the whole of your life is in balance, because you know what happens when you feel out of balance, right? Commitments break. Goals get shelved. Defeat resumes.

Look at each area of The Wheel, like health and finances, career and health, as “spokes,” of a wheel, to tighten up your goals in ways that promote the results you want, but in a smart and balanced way.

I’ve created a FREE worksheet to help guide you in doing the Wheel of Life exercise. Just click below for an instant download.

Download Your Free Wheel of Life Exercise! 

I recommend blocking 15-30 minutes to do this exercise today, to weigh in on the goals you set last week, and how what you discover in this exercise can help you smartly edit them!

If you know you’re caught up in the world of doing, doing, doing, and reacting to life, rather than creating the forward momentum and results you most want, add the Wheel of Life to your New Year’s resolutions and goal setting this year… It will help you identify where you’re at now, and what you need to do, to get what you most want for you life, in a healthy and balanced way. 

I’ve heard many saying this week, “I’m done with resolutions.”

That 2018 is the “Year of Intention.”

No goals. No personal development. No plan.

Intention is the compass now.

What about you? Did you denounce resolutions this year?

I get it. Take good care of yourself. It’s essential. Yes.

But, how do you get from point A to point B, without a plan, without taking action?

The definition of resolution says, “a firm decision to do or not to do something.”

To do. To take action. Or not.

IF your committed to personal growth and development, for you and your life,

• With your health
• With your relationships,
• Or even with your time-management,

It’s irrefutable, getting there is going to require more than intention.

Change requires you take new actions.

I myself have an arms-length of goals I want to achieve this year, from building “my strongest body ever,” to delivering a TED Talk, to even writing a book.

Intention alone would never get me the results I want.

Creating Actionable Goals in 2018

At the kickoff call for my 1:1 coaching program, Your Best Health Project, and as the kickoff for this year long blog series, I, ask one starting question:

What do you want to get out of this program?

Or, more specifically, what are the goals you most want to achieve while we work together?

And then we set the stage of every action you will take to achieve your goals.

Intention matters. You set one in our first session. It guides the program, but actions get you to your end game.

Simply put, intention is not enough.

Without taking new actions, you can’t create change.

I ask you, WHAT top 3-5 goals would you most love to achieve in your health and wellness this year?

As an example, you might say, I want to lose weight.

But “I want to lose weight” is elusive. It’s not specific enough. To achieve any goal, it has to be smart, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely.

If weight-loss is your goal, you want to pick a specific number of pounds you want to lose, and you want to calculate how much weigh you’ll lose each week, each month, to get to your goal weight. Then you want to be realistic for the 6-month period of time we’d work together — you don’t want to set an unrealistic expectation and set yourself up for failure.

OK, let’s break it down:

Over a 6-month period, if you want to lose 30 pounds, divide 30 (the pounds you want to lose) by 24 weeks (the 6 months of working together) and you’d easily see that you need to lose .8 pounds per week to get to your goal weight.

But this is only one example, and the math makes it easy to measure.

But let’s say your goal is something more intangible, like you want more energy.

Then you’d choose specific actions that would increase your energy in a very measurable way.

For example, one of my overall top recommendations with every client is, The Math Equation, where I recommend clients take out foods that cause inflammation in the body (which inherently deplete energy reserves) and add in The Wholly Trinity, or greens 3-ways, a green juice, a green smoothie and a meal-sized green salad every day that will naturally increase energy because every ingredient is oxygen heavy (which increases energy).

• HINT — Choose ONE goal, or new habit that you KNOW could make every other action easier. For example, you might choose getting up 30 minutes earlier in the morning, so you can journal and meditate before others in your family wake up. Or, you might choose preparing smoothies and lunches at nighttime, like my client Courtney does, to make mornings more smooth and easy with her family.

Creating Your Goal Plan

Whatever your goal, you can, and you must:

1. Write your goals down. If you write them down, you put them into existence — they become a real target, rather than simply wishful thinking.
2. Choose specific actions that you can measure in very solid ways, and they must be realistic for the time window you choose to achieve them.
3. Publicly declare your goal, and the actions you’re going to take to achieve it.
4. Create accountability with another person, like a coach or an accountability partner.

Research shows that if you write down your goals, share them with a friend, and create accountability with a coach or accountability partner, you will exponentially reap higher results.

Your turn. Your time.

If you know you struggle with accountability (just look back at your 2016 and 2017 resolutions!) and are ready to create the results you want now, by working with me, click here to schedule a free discovery call to see what’s possible.

Or, if you just need a safe space to declare your goals – post in the comments below! Then bookmark this page and come back to stay on track, I’ll support you every step of the way!

I saw a handsome young man walk out of the mall in gym shorts yesterday.

Not a day older than 21 is my guess.

Everything about him grabbed my attention, and it wasn’t his wearing shorts near Christmas in December that stopped me.

He walked with a very noticeable confidence,

An athletic swagger,

A huge smile,

A badass haircut,

And… a shiny, black titanium leg.

And then in a blink of an eye, I saw, that I was wrong.

He had TWO shiny, black titanium legs.

I was driving along preoccupied by the thoughts that time seemed to be my enemy,

And this handsome young man was literally walking with a skip in his step,

On two prosthetic legs.

When I was a young girl, I was taught that Christmas is a holy time that invites us all to reflect on what matters most.

That no matter what the challenge,

No matter what the concern,

No matter what the barrier,

The promise and the Spirit of Christmas belongs to each of us,

That everything and anything is possible, if we believe that everything and anything is possible,

That evidence of Christmas exists everywhere,

If we look for it,

Even in traffic at the mall.

The holiday season is here.

And there’s one thing I know you’ll see at every,

In-office Yankee grab-bag exchange,

Saturday night dinner party, and

After work cocktail party…

The Spirit of the season,

which often looks like,

overflowing plates of cookies,

festive froufrou mixed-drinks, and

tables laden with traditional family favorites,

that you don’t want to eat, and… you so do.

Add to all this festivity, the end-of-the-year deadline-stress,

Hours preparing for your family and friend get-togethers, and

Late-night shopping excursions,

And rather than feel festive, all you feel is exhausted and stressed.

Add in one cocktail to a tired body, and

Bam! Your resistance is double-downed!

Which is why you end up eating, drinking and indulging more than you ever want.

Looking to understand why you feel lousy and gained excess weight after the holidays?

Look no further than stress, lack of sleep and hormonal imbalance.

Yes, when you’re stressed-out and tired, your body produces higher levels of the hormone grehlin, which is also known as the hunger hormone.

When your body releases higher levels of grehlin, you want to eat more, which naturally lowers the hormone leptin, the hormone that tells you to stop eating, that you’re satisfied, that you’ve had enough.

This is one of the biggest reasons why you feel hungry, even when you know you’re not.

This is a likely reason you crave sugary foods and carbs mid-day — you’re body is looking for a quick energy pick-me-up, and carbs does just that — they give you the quick and immediate energy fix you’re looking for.

Plus, you “feel happy” when you eat sugary, carb-y things. Do you know why? Ti’s true, your body releases serotonin, the feel-good hormone with every bite you take!

Add to this cascade of hormonal responses, the energy blast your body gets from the cortisol your adrenal glands start pumping, because it deems you’re in a “fight or flight” situation from all the stress and exhaustion AND sugar and carbs!

This blast of excess cortisol (continuously pumping if you’re continuously eating sugar and carbs) is the likely culprit for excess weight gain.

To add insult to injury, excess cortisol can lead you to screaming for more serotonin, which leads to the never-ending hamster wheel of craving sugar AND fatty, processed foods!

So… IF you don’t want to fall down the legendary, holiday rabbit hole of gaining excess weight and feeling sick and unhealthy this year, you’ve got to get a good nights sleep and reduce stress (I’ve got 1000 tips for this!), and you’ve got to balance out the indulgence of the season with a few smart ideas. Want mine?

Your Turn:

Can I help you healthfully navigate the holidays this year with more suggestions, tips and ideas?

What always seems to pull you out, but you want to change that this year?

Post your questions and comments below. I’d love to help.

Ready to take control of your health in 2018? Lets’s schedule a call to talk about your goals. Email me at carol@carol-egan.com