Happy New Year!

I know, we’re already 1 day into the new year. The past couple days I wasn’t feeling all that great, so I was resting and spending time with my wife. But today, I’m back at it. So how about you? What are you going to tackle and take on today? Is it going to be stepping on the treadmill for the first time in a while? Is it going to be taking on your closet? That catch all drawer? Whatever it is, here’s a couple of suggestions to help you.

Simple is key. Instead of starting with the entire closet, start with a part of it. Once you get that done, then your goal is to get to the next part. That whole idea I wrote about on Sunday of bite-sized goals. Make it manageable and easy to achieve. My way of breaking my weight loss goal down into bite-sized goals was a weekly 2 pound goal. Now yesterday was a date day with my wife and no children. We had lunch at a steakhouse, had massages and watched The Greatest Showman (I highly recommend it!) So, yesterday, for my breakfast, I had a fruit smoothie with frozen fruit, almond milk, coconut oil and Greek Yogurt. I had a 6 ounce steak for lunch, and sweet potato fries (which I only ate half of). And we did have an appetizer of jalepeno shrimp things which were delicious. But we only had 4 between the two of us. For dinner.....I had popcorn. Yes, popcorn. But here’s the crazy thing. Yesterday morning, I stood on the scale to get my starting point for the year. 280.6. Today, I stepped on the scale....278.6 And that’s without starting my Whole30 eating (which I am today). And exercise, which I’ll be adding in as well.

The other thing that we forget about is making it fun. Jon Acuff did a great job of writing about this in his book Finish, and I think that’s something we lose sight of. Whatever we’re doing has to be drudgery because it’s “work” and it’s “cleaning up” or it’s “getting healthy” or whatever you want to call it. But seriously, if you want to get some serious cleaning done.....put on some “Eye of the Tiger” by Survivor and get that stuff knocked out! Or before you workout, make yourself a motivational playlist that’s going to get you going. Music helps lots! Or maybe once you get that small goal done, you give yourself a small reward, and once you get that big goal done, you give yourself a big reward! You know you better than anyone else, so you have to decide what is going to motivate you to do it.

So start small and have fun!Bite sized goals