How to Stick to Your New Years’ Resolutions

Chris Albert 00:00:00 (link to this point)

This is Chris Albert, and I'm here to remind you of one thing. Someday, you're going to die. Now that's not some morbid statement or scary idea. It's solid fact. Your time here on this earth is limited.

We need to be reminded of this as much as possible for one simple reason, to live your best life while you can. This is the Warrior Soul Podcast. So it's now December 26 as I record this episode, and we're headed on the train to New Year's. 2019 is around the corner, and with it come the New Year's resolutions. And with those New Year's resolutions, there comes a turn toward fitness.

Now I wanna say a couple of things here because you're gonna see a bunch of things. You're gonna see a lot of trainers out there who are gonna make you try to feel bad for setting New Year's resolutions, who are going to say, New Year's resolutions are useless. New Year's resolutions are not going to work for you. You don't need New Year's resolutions. You need commitment, and you need discipline.

I don't disagree with that statement. I think that every year, people set New Year's resolutions. And by March, most of the time, those news New Year's resolutions are out the window. They've forgotten about them. They've forgotten about the goals they set at the beginning of the year.

They've forgotten about the things they promised themselves. And so the cycle starts all over again. You continue to try to get back on the train, doesn't work out, work gets heavy, something happens with your family. And, again, you jump off, And you're in a continual process to get back on and just to start getting on that path to where you wanna go. Now here's the thing, though.

If you want to set New Year's resolutions, this is the way I would go about doing it. Those goals you have, you need to think about what they mean to you first and foremost. Why are you going after those goals? So for example, a lot of times you'll hear New Year's resolution. I am not going to eat sugar anymore this New Year's.

Alright? After 2019, I will not eat sugar anymore. And in that process, I will lose 30 pounds. Alright? That's that's something we hear constantly.

So when you think about losing those 30 pounds and you set that goal, right, maybe your goal is you want to lose 30 pounds. Maybe your goal is I want to fit into a pair of pair of jeans. Maybe your goal is I want to fit into my dress blues that I wore. Last time I wore them, I was 22 years old, and I was I was trim. I was lean.

I was everything that I want to be right now, and I wanna get back to that. Right? But think about why you're doing it. Why are you doing it? Why are you going after that goal?

And I'll tell you, this is one thing this is one reason why I don't do bodybuilding anymore. Because when I was bodybuilding, my goals were constantly revolved around competitions, and my training my training, my regimen was was centered around something that was very, very temporary. Right? Going and training for a few weeks at a time toward a specific goal to step on stage. And while I still love the sport and still respect the sport, my goals are very different now.

Why do I train now? Well, I train because I know that someday I want to have a family. I know that someday I want children. I want to have a long and happy life with Shawna, the love of my life, and I want to be able to spend time with her. And when I get old, I don't want her to have to take care of me.

I don't want her to have to wipe my butt. I don't want her to have to be burdened by somebody who is incapable, who is not capable to be as a human being should be. Right? And and that's not saying that, you know, anybody who's who's older would need to simply dump them at the side of the road or anything like that. I'm not saying that.

What I am saying is that we should prevent prevent any increased risk for us becoming physically incapable at any point in time. Why? Well, because if you look at the statistics right now, well, I think up to a third of all adults 18 are heading toward prediabetes. And the thing that happens with with diabetes, if you if you get diabetes, well, it's not very good. Alright?

It leads to potential of losing limbs, leads to potential of having a heart attack, leads to increased potential of mental dementia, early onset mental dementia. Right? And we're going to see a whole host of human beings over the next twenty, thirty, forty years who are literally not there in their minds because of the poor nutrition practices they had when they were younger. So, in my mind, the reason why I continue to harp on my nutrition, to train, to do everything I can to make myself healthy, is because thirty, forty years from now, I still wanna be here. Even if my body's still alive, I want my mind to be sharp.

I wanna be the person that I am. I want to be able to be present and to love everybody around me. And I think that one of the things that people get caught up with in New Year's resolutions is they think about that 20, that thirty pounds. They think about fitting into those jeans. They think about, you know, maybe adding a few inches to their biceps or or maybe getting abs for the summertime.

But what happens with those things when work becomes a little bit too much? When you have a lot of family obligations on your plate, when your life becomes a little bit overwhelming. What happens to those goals? They go out the window. Why do they go out the window?

Because those abs, fitting in those jeans, losing 30 pounds, as much as we want them, and as good as they might be for us, those are nice to haves. They're not essentials. What is essential? What's essential is your ability to think, your ability to perform your job, your ability to be a parent, to be a good spouse, to earn money and and and to do all the things that you want to do with your life. But the problem is that when you think of fitness in that way, is just going after those goals that I just mentioned, well, what happens is you compartmentalize fitness into something else that's not attached to your life, that's not essential.

That's not something that is going to add up into improving your life. You're just thinking about putting food on the table and doing all the things that that you have to do. But when you understand that fitness is the key to something more, fitness is probably the key to putting more food on the table, to allowing you to become better at your job because you can become sharper, because you can become clearer, because you can become more disciplined, more dedicated, That allows you to become a better father, because you're in a better mood, because you are in a better mindset. It allows you to become a better spouse, because it makes you more confident. And it helps to increase your hormonal health and helps you to increase your sexual health.

All of these things, they contribute to you being the best version of you possible so that you can live the best life possible. Fitness isn't just about vanity. It's not just about looking good. It's not just about fitting in those jeans or or having a trim waistline or having bulging biceps. Fitness is about making you into the strongest and biggest and best, not biggest, but best version of yourself that you can be.

So that's my message to you this week in this final week of 2018. And as we head into 2019, yeah, create your New Year's resolutions, but center them around things that you want for your life overall and understand what fitness is gonna do for that. I wanna thank you so much for listening. If you haven't listened to this podcast before, my name is Chris Albert. This is the Warrior Soul podcast.

The reason why I do this podcast is because over the past decade and a half of war, The US military veteran community has faced a lot of issues. High suicide rates, high rates of chronic disease, extremely high rates of veteran homelessness, and depression. And the reason why we do these episodes here is to deliver tools, tactics, and ideas to help everybody out there in the veteran community who's listening to the show to live their best lives. We're not just trying to raise awareness about suicide or homelessness or anything like that. We're trying to deliver actual solutions.

So if you like what we have to say here, all I ask of you is that you spread the word about the show, that you let other people know that we're here, that you let other people know about things that could potentially help them. And if you can, pay us the highest compliment by heading over to iTunes and writing us a written review. It really helps the show to spread the word. Finally, I just wanna say thank you to our amazing sponsors at f bomb nutrition. It's been an awesome year with them, and absolutely love their product.

They have these amazing macadamia nut butters that they mix up with chocolate, they mix up with sea salt, they mix up with pecan butter. Absolutely delicious. And they've been sending boxes of this stuff over to the troops on the front lines. They also have some amazing new cheese snacks that they've created. So good.

If you wanna get your first order of f bombs and you want 20% off, head over to www.dropanfbomb.com and use the code Warrior Soul at checkout. As always, you can find all of our episodes up at www.warriorsoulagoge.com. That's a g o g e. And I look forward to bringing you this Friday's Warrior Notes. Till then, have an absolutely amazing holiday, and I hope you had a great Christmas.