And so another new year begins! Crazy huh? We’re a few days into January now and we’re all still trying hard to keep our healthy eating and daily exercising resolutions, but this year I decided I wanted to take my resolutions a bit further. A few weeks ago now, I read Gretchen Rubin’s “The Happiness Project” and I really loved it. I found myself very similar to Gretchen in terms of personality type, how I hold myself accountable, and how I succeed in these types of personal improvements. So, I decided that 2016 would be the year that I did my own happiness project! Each month I’m going to focus on a different aspect (e.g. mindfulness, friendships, pursuing passions), and January’s focus is “Boost Energy & Health”. I figured since I’ve been working hard to stick to Kayla Itsines’ BBG workout guides, it would be a good way to start off the year – improving my health all around. Making sure to exercise and get enough sleep every night would set me up for success, and will give me the energy to continue my resolutions over the upcoming months!
To set up my happiness project, and following Gretchen’s suggestions, each month has a theme, a quote, and a few resolutions. So this month, since it’s all about health and fitness, it seemed fitting to choose a quote from the fitness guru Jillian Michaels herself!
With that in mind, here are my three resolutions that I’m going to try and stick with every day of January!
Exercise
Whether it be just getting my 10,000 steps in (side note: I am LOVING my new Fitbit Flex, such a great way of keeping track of my steps, exercise, and sleep!), going to a yoga class, or crushing my BBG workouts, everything counts! And like Jillian says, “It’s not about perfect. It’s about effort.”
Make a healthy choice
Choosing the healthy option vs. the unhealthy one once a day – that’s not so tough right? I thought it would be a more manageable resolution rather than “Eat 100 vegetables a day” since it seems like a small change, but it puts me in the mindset of making healthy choices. Sure, I can have that chocolate bar, but I know that I’m not going to feel as well later compared to if I had a piece of fruit, which will give me loads of energy and make me feel like my best self!
Be in bed at 10pm, and no electronics after 9:30pm
In the past little while, I have found that I haven’t been getting enough hours of sleep or a good enough quality of sleep, and it’s especially obvious now that my Fitbit tracks my sleep! So I would love to get into a bedtime routine (reading a book, doing a few bedtime yoga poses, or writing in my journal) that lets me wind down and gets me set up for a great night’s sleep (that doesn’t include scrolling through Instagram before turning the lights out). Hopefully this leads to feeling more alert and refreshed throughout the day!
So that’s January! Looking forward to spending this month tackling my resolutions and seeing an improvement in my health and energy day to day! I’ll be sure to keep everyone posted on how this month went, and stay tuned for February’s theme “Blog Time” and my new resolutions! Anyone else read Gretchen’s book “The Happiness Project”? What did you think? Have any happiness project success stories?
XO
Danielle