Are you looking forward to the New Year and setting some big goals for 2023?

For those who don’t know me, I’m Yvette, and I help Crossfit and strength athletes of all levels actually feel like they look like an athlete.  It happens all the time – people who get their butts to the gym 5x week and put in the effort, but because their nutrition is all over the place – their bodies never really change and they don’t look like they workout.  And that’s beyond frustrating!  I know, I’ve been there.

And this is how I changed it all around.

HABIT BUILDING.

One at a time.

I know your type A action-oriented mindset wants to jump right in headfirst and do all.the.things.  But you know as well as I do that this very quickly turns to the sabotaging all-or-nothing outlook that keeps you stuck.

Oops, fell off plan and had a cookie with lunch?  Might as well have the pizza and wine for dinner, the day’s shot anyway! 

That would be like the cardiac patient saying, “Well, I still eat a little bacon every now and again, so there’s no point taking my heart meds”.   Here’s another one (I hope you love analogies as much as I do 🤓) – You would never pull over because you got a flat tire, and so you slash the other three tires because hey, you can’t drive anywhere anyway!  Sounds ridiculous I know, but isn’t it about the same?

Having a set back in a day is NO reason to intentionally keep setting yourself back for the rest of the day, the week, the month!  But we do it to ourselves ALL the time, don’t we?

This is the year you stop doing that.

How?  By focusing on one good [however small it may seem] habit at a time.

This is SO simple that most of us completely overlook it, and so we miss out on its inherent power!  Small habit-building IS exactly what creates chiselled abs and super hero energy!

When you master one new fundamental nutrition habit each month, even if you only kept doing half of those throughout the year, just imagine how much further ahead you’ll be a year from now!

Okay… being completely honest here. There is a second step that is super effective to help you take consistent action to build those habits.

ACCOUNTABILITY.

Research shows again and again that having external accountability increases our ability to achieve our goals. It’s just too easy to make excuses to ourselves, right?  But when you have something or someone to be accountable to, our stick-with-it-ness improves exponentially.  That external accountability could be:

• a coach or mentor
• an accountability partner or friend
• an event (ie: a competition or special event)
• a prize or award (also tapping into competitiveness or reward system)
• monetary value (you’ve invested in it financially and/or there’s money or value up for grabs)

The key is to tap into a source of accountability that scares or excites you a little!  If not, it doesn’t mean enough to you. (hint: your bestie often isn’t the best accountability source if he/she makes everything okay for you, just saying)