After establishing a purpose in life, and having a firm belief that you can successfully accomplish your life and fitness goals, the next step is to develop a plan that includes a series of organized strategies that can help you achieve your goals.
First, identify all the aspects of a healthy life. The four major components of health and fitness are: Wellness, Lifestyle, Nutrition and Fitness. Each component also has many sub-components, for example Wellness can include stress management and disease prevention. The same is true for all areas. Notice how these components intersect. A poor lifestyle habit of excessive alcohol consumption can bring about a wellness issue of liver malfunction and both can affect the ability to improve health and fitness.
Other aspects of a healthy life are developing and nurturing good support systems, maintaining healthy and meaningful relationships with others, showing empathy, and spiritual focus such as practicing whatever safe religious beliefs one might desire. Ultimately, not compromising moral, values, ethics and connecting with others are interconnected with a healthy life.
The challenge is balancing all these aspects. It may seem overwhelming, but we have all accomplished some balance. The key is understanding that we are going to live for seventy-plus years, and it will take this life’s journey to grow, develop, experience, incorporate and slowly balance as many aspects as possible for our lifetime. One may never achieve complete balance, however the goal is to consistently strive to become a better, healthier person. That is the enriching fulfillment that will continually drive us to live a healthy happy life with ourselves and those around us.
Dr. Maxwell Maltz estimated that it takes a minimum of 21 days to formulate a habit. However researchers at University College London conducted studies which indicated that it took participants an average of 66 days to formulate a new habit, with the least amount of days being 18 and the maximum being 254.
There is really no magic number. However, I have found that it took me and the majority of my clients approximately 90 days, give or take a week or two, to decisively accept change, formulate new behavior, implement this new behavior and make a permanent behavioral change. Hence my 90 day rule, which seems to coincide with the fact that physiologically it takes about 90 days for the human body to undergo significant cellular and metabolic changes in response to progressive exercise stimulus.
My suggested strategy is as follows. During the first month smaller proximal goals are set in a timely fashion that you can accomplish. During month two further proximal goals are set that eventually direct you toward achieving the set goal at the end of month three. The objective is breaking down the goal into smaller time frames, like 3 months, where it is not overwhelming, yet attainable. An example would be a goal to drink 8 glasses of water. For the first month, drink
5 glasses of water every day. The next month drink 6. The third month drink 8 glasses of water. A habit can be solidified at this point.
Keep in mind not everyone can meet these time frames, this is where you have to be flexible enough to understand and accept that you may need to continue some goals for another month or two or even three. There are goals that may take more over-all time and there are unforseen circumstances that can cease progress for a while. Overall, stay flexible with time, but always keep working toward your goals. They are attainable!
At Shula’s Athletic Club, I’m very fortunate to part of a team of young professional coaches that share the same vision as I do. Together we are dedicated and committed to provide everyone in our facility and community with the highest quality service. We understand the importance of achieving goals and living a high quality, disease and injury free life.