2013 New Year's Resolutions

Let's talk about new year's resolutions for a moment before I get to mine. Did you know last year the top 10 new years resolutions were to lose weight, get organized, spend less, enjoy life to the fullest, stay fit, learn something exciting, quit smoking, help others life their dreams, fall in love, & spend more time with family. How many of you reading this had one of those resolutions (whether you wrote them down or are even willing to admit to it)? How many kept their resolutions? Did you know, on average, it takes a person 7 tries to quit smoking? I bet that statistic could apply to many other lifestyle changes as well. What does this mean? Keep trying! I bet I have had lose weight on my new year's resolutions list since I started making resolutions. Have I always lost weight? No. Have I sometimes lost weight? Of course! I know I am not good at keeping a static weight, so if I try to lose, I have less of a chance of doing the opposite! 

But what is the most successful strategy for goal setting?

SMART goals!

specific, measurable, attainable, relevant & timely

Write down specifically what you want to do! Share it with someone, it keeps you accountable... that's why I am choosing to share mine with you today. If you need someone to keep you accountable, feel free to leave your resolutions in the comments below or email them to me privately, I promise I will not share!

Make sure it is measurable, if you want to lose weight, how many pounds or what body fat percentage do you want to lose? If you want to be able to run longer, how far do you want to be able to run without stopping? Do you have a specific race in mind to run? Do you want to get better grades in a specific class? What grade do you want to achieve?

Is you goal attainable? You cannot lose 20lbs by the end of January in a healthy way, but you can lose 20 lbs by the end of 2013. Research says it is healthy to lose an average of 2lbs per week. If you lose weight at a faster rate, you have a greater chance of regaining it.

Is your goal relevant to you? Or is someone else making you do this? You need to want to change in order to make the change.

Make sure your goals are time sensitive. What does this mean? Make yourself a specific timeline for when you want to achieve your goals. I would also recommend not trying to achieve everything at once. Are you a student or a teacher? Maybe you could save one goal for summer break rather than do everything in January. Just don't forget to put a reminder in your calendar!

Now what you have all been waiting for... my resolutions for 2013!

I will lose weight... 30lbs to be exact. 

I want to do this by July 1. How am I going to do this? Well, I already teach 9 hours of Zumba per week. My plan is to add more strength training, dailyhiit, and exercise classes (yoga, barre, & pilates). There is also a Living Social deal for Crossfit that I have 5 more days to purchase. It is something I have always wanted to try. Should this be the year I try it? I must remind myself not too much at once. I hope to add one class per week plus 2 times at the gym. But exercise is not everything in weight loss. I plan to make better use of my juicer as well as focus on vegetables and lean protein. 

I will brush my teeth 2 times per day. 

This is something I am not very good at... purely because I am lazy. Enough said.

I will keep my 4.0gpa.

After my first semester of graduate school I attained a 4.0gpa. I want to keep up the hard work as I now know this is something I am capable of doing. I always know my grades throughout the semester, and with three semesters coming up this year, I will have many times to keep this one in check. 

I will publish 1 academic article. 

My goal is to have it submitted to a journal by the end of the spring semester... if not earlier! I have one class this semester dedicated to this goals so this is very attainable. 

I will run a 5k race.  

Running has always been a struggle for me, especially outdoors, so I will have to work hard at this one. I will need to work on this in the spring and fall outdoors as well as indoors in the summer because of the heat. My plan is to slowly tackle a 5k running planning from a women's running book I own. I have not picked a race I would like to run yet but I imagine it will be in the fall. 

I will become a better Zumba instructor. 

In September, I became certified in Zumba instruction and teach 3 sections of Zumba for credit at LSU. I want to improve in the areas of creativity, energy while teaching, and class design. 

I will sell some old books. 

Since we moved last winter, we have realized we can live with way less than we thought. To me, less clutter = zen so we want to continue to purge some things we have in excess, like books. I want to find somewhere to sell them rather than just give them away. I also need to remember this applies to magazines so I need to be better at recycling editions that are more than 6 months old and finding articles I liked online to pin to the most relevant Pinterest pages.  

Finally, I will improve my blog. 

How? I am not sure. I have a book on blogging that I bought a year ago... still have not read it! But I plan to read it in Mexico. I want to find my niche in the blogging. I love to blog about everything I love, but I feel as though I need more direction. Any requests of things you like to read about? This one I will need to update in the future. 

Doable? Yes! I feel I have a good balance of personal and academic goals to keep me going for 2013!

Now its your job to keep me accountable.