**Update: Here are the winners of our 6 DietBet entries: Me: Christy Cloer (Facebook), @alishabowling (Instagram), and April Sherlock (Twitter). Chris: Chelsi Byrnes (Facebook), @joshmagill (Instagram), and Carrie Sagel Burns (Twitter). We replied to your posts with the info on how to claim your free entry, so go check them right now! 😉 You have 24 hours to reply. Congratulations!
Every New Year?s Eve, Chris and I gather up our friends and family for a little resolutions party. It is without a doubt one of my favorite days of the entire year. Together, we hang out, set off fireworks, and laugh about the crazy adventures over the last year. Right before the New Year hits, we each write out individual resolutions on paper lanterns and release them into the sky. There is something so powerful about declaring your resolutions out loud to those closest to you. These kinds of promises, as opposed to silent promises, give us an added layer of accountability that we all need…including me!!
2015 has absolutely flown by, and I really can’t believe it’s that time of year again when at least 45% of us make those New Year?s Resolutions to lose weight, or save money, or get out of debt, or go back to school, or cross off that bucket list item…and on and on. Why is it, then, that on December 31st?364 short days later?only 8% of resolution makers are successful? Why do we have a hard time achieving any goal, no matter when we begin? Why is it so hard to do what we know we need to do? What quenched that burning fire we felt on day 1 of this ?fresh start,? and how can we reignite it and be successful goal achievers? It might take some trial and error to find your fire, but go for it?you?re so worth it!
Here are my six solutions for reigniting, and then keeping your goal-achieving fire burning brightly?with some motivational quotes thrown in for some extra kindling: 😉
1. Have a heart-to-heart conversation with yourself and ask?and answer?the hard questions: Why do I want to achieve this goal? How will my life be better by achieving it? If this is a repeat goal, why did I fall (because we never fail!) the last time? What will I do differently this time?
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. ~Unknown
The best goal has a deeper motivation?that burning fire you feel within: to get a better job, to be able to play with your kids without feeling like you?re going to die, to retire at a certain age, etc. And while a goal to fit into that pair of jeans might get you started, it?s probably not a long-term motivator. Find that ?burning fire? purpose and you?re good to go!
Purpose is the most powerful motivator in the world. ~Gandhi
2.? Prioritize:? If your calendar and to-do list don?t match up with your goal, you?ve got a problem.
You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage…to say ?no? to other things. And the way to do that is by having a bigger ?YES? burning inside. ~ Stephen Covey
Yes, you need to take care of life and the people in your life, but if your to-do list is full of too many low-priority ?other? things, you?ve lost your bigger, burning YES! Carefully prioritize your life and make sure those YESs are front and center.
3.? Replace fear with courage: The fear of failure is a huge fear we all have to deal with when committing to a goal, and the hardest part of reaching that goal is often convincing ourselves we can change even though we?re afraid! One of the easiest ways to find the courage amongst your fears is to make and keep one small Promise to yourself. Success ignites even more courage!
Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear. The brave may not live forever, but the cautious do not live at all. ~Disney?s “The Princess Diaries”
4.? Celebrate every single success, no matter how small: Set up your own reward system?it works for kids, why wouldn?t it work for you?! Make your rewards something tangible, motivating, and goal-related, and remember that each tiny success makes that fire burn even hotter, so celebrate!
People who succeed have momentum. The more they succeed, the more they want to succeed, and the more they find a way to succeed. ~Tony Robbins
5.? Be realistic:
- Achieving this goal will definitely make your life better, but don?t make the mistake of thinking it will make life ?perfect.? If you do, you?re setting yourself up for a big fall.
- Be prepared to fall, and when you do, pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and confess, reassess, and recommit to your goal. Remember: Falling is not failing!
- Get comfortable with feeling uncomfortable. Feeling comfortable is definitely a fire extinguisher!
Life is not meant to be lived in your comfort zone. ~Laurel Day
6.? Some other ways to keep that fire burning:
- Work on one goal at a time and make sure it?s a SMART Goal.
- If you don?t know where to start, do some research, ask others, and become a budding expert. For a weight loss goal, check out our Carb Cycling program?it works!
- Just begin. Focus on one small thing you can do today to move closer to your goal. Get on that treadmill for just 5 minutes, deposit $5 in a savings account, or look over your resume. One small thing.
- Prepare for and take care of small bumps in the road before they become huge roadblocks to your success.
Guys, I?ve got an amazing way for you to get a great start on that 2016 transformation goal, and it starts January 4th. Chris and I are hosting another?DietBet game??Get Lean in 2016 with Heidi & Chris Powell??and we?d love to have you on our Get Lean Team! It?s simple: Bet $30, lose 4% of your body weight in 30 days, and split the pot (which is growing every day, BTW!). What an awesome way to invest in yourself in more ways than one. 😉 Who?s in? Get all the info?here! And to give you a jump start on your 2016 transformation goals, I’m giving away three entries to our DietBet game! Here’s how to enter:
- Leave a comment below and tell me about one of your New Year’s Resolutions. And to make it really real, tell me one promise you’re going to make to yourself to help you achieve this goal!
- Make sure you’re following me on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, and then like this post on any of my channels. You can even share it if you feel so inclined. 😉
- You have until midnight, Sunday, January 3rd, to enter, and one winner will be randomly chosen from Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, and announced here on Monday, January 4th.
And remember, finding your fire and keeping it burning brightly is all up to you?no one can do it for you. You got this! 🙂
Xoxo,
Heidi
1,283 Responses
I plan to reduce my weight by 20% and stop drinking diet soda
My first ever New Year’s Resolution is to get fit. I do have some pounds to lose, but I want to ultimately be a healthier me. I’ve never been overly big or really tiny, just somewhere in the middle, but I have decided I don’t want to live with mediocre any more. If I’m going to gradually change, I want it to be for the better not worse. I want to earn a spot in the Dietbet challenge, because I did it a few months back and just barely succeeded, but then gained it back plus a couple more. My promise is to be a role model for my son. I love the posts of Chris and Cash and you and the girls. I want to be that inspiration in those surrounding me!
I think the biggest goal for myself this year is to be healthy and take car of me. For the past three and a half years I have dedicated my life to taking care of both of my parents. My dad had cancer and died in 2014 and my mom died from a failed heart in 2015 and I was with them thru it all. I also have a 14 year old who I have been putting first in my life since she was born. Somewhere thru all of this I have lost a sense of who I am and what I like to do and I just stopped caring for myself and taking care of me, because after all everyone else comes first, isn’t that is how its suppose to be. I am going to learn to be healthy, not just physically, but emotionally, mentally and spiritually as well. Though I am not sure where to start, I think I will just start listening to my body and try to reconnect to what it needs and what it trying to tell me. I would love help from yoy, but I realize there are so many people deserving of this opportunity. Thank you.
Hi Heidi-
I have been trying to think of how to put into words what I want for myself this year, but it is so difficult. As I am writing this, I have a cousin who is losing his battle to live. And it is making me want all the more to get healthy. You see, he is dying because he made an unhealthy choice to smoke and that caused him to develop cancer. He experienced some horrific complications Tuesday, and it looks like this will be his last day on earth. And I am devastated. His wife, their kids, I just can’t understand something like this!!
And this scares me. Because although I do not smoke, I make unhealthy choices for my body every day. So my goals for this year are as follows- to make myself a priority. To go back to being the gym rat I once was, but this time to also control my eating- so I can be healthy from the inside out! I have never had control of my weight, even when I worked out religiously. And that is what I want, to fuel my body and not my emotions. To be healthy. For me, for my husband, for my kids, for my future.
It would be great to win, as money is tight right now as I am back finishing my BSN degree, and this would be fantastic motivation to keep me going! I am using Chris’ older book, and hope to get your new book for my birthday in March!
Thank you for all you do,
Heather
I want 2016 to be where I get lean! But first I need to reignite my fire to achieve my goals. Two years ago, I joined my first ever dietbets and truly focused on my weight loss. I was excited when I lost 30 lbs in 3 months all on my own by eating right and working out. Then in my fourth month, I found out devastating news that I will never be able to give birth as I had to have a full hysterecomy. I lost myself and over the course of the rest of the year, managed to gain everything back plus some. Now that I have given myself another year to recover, I want t make this my best year yet and finally loose the weight. I am making the commitment of not giving up and to keep going. I want to lose my 100 lbs this year!
Love you both and reading extreme transformation book. I had weight loss surgery in 2010 losing 128 lbs and have kept it off. For 2016, I want to lose another 10, tone, and bulid muscle. Love to win diet bet entry!
I want to get into shape not only for myself, but for my wife and baby girl. I also want to be an inspiration for my family who needs to lose weight and change their habits. If I can do it, it will prove to them that they can do it as well. By helping myself I can help others.
Thank you to both of you for your inspiring words, me and my husband plan to lose a combined hundred pounds this year. Your encouraging words are truly an inspiration. My promise to myself this year is just to be consistent In everything I do to fix my health. I’m in remission from diabetes at the moment and get scared when I check my numbers and their high I plan to permanently get rid of my diabetes.
My goal is by the end of 2016 to lose 10% of my body weight.
My goal is to workout for health and fitness this year… because I WANT to and because it make me feel good. I don’t want to workout to earn cheat foods or workout for punishment for bad behavior.