Resolutions: Forgive, learn from setbacks:
Do you fret over keeping that looming New Year’s resolution to shape up in the coming months? Experts say while wishing will not make it so, visualizing our trimmer, fitter self can help to set you on the right path.
“Visualize your success,” advises fitness and wellness instructor Shirley Archer. “Imagine a perfect day where you are at fitness level that you want. How would you look and feel and what would you be able to do easily if you enjoyed your ideal fitness?”
Then, said Archer, the author of Fitness 9 to 5, get to work on specific goals.
“The typical mistake is being too vague and too large,” she said. “Instead of “I want to lose weight,” say, ‘I will walk 10 minutes Monday through Friday.’ And don’t make those goals harder until you’ve achieved the easier ones.”
Big goals are fine, Archer believes, as long as you break them down, and learn from, and forgive, your inevitable backslides. “Ask yourself why you did that but be emotionally neutral,” said Archer. “Get rid of that self-critic.”
She calls it training from the inside out, and admits it’s easier said than done.
“Studies show it typically takes about eight weeks to make a new habit stick,” she said. “So if you have to work hard to change that mindset.”
Kevin Burns, spokesperson for the American Council on Exercise and a fitness trainer for 20 years, urges swapping grandiose dreams of enormous changes for two or three smart, specific and measurable goals. Then write them down.
“Instead of saying “I”ll exercise every single day in 2012,” set a schedule, set a time line, and be flexible but specific,” said Burns.
“A New Year’s resolution is a marathon, not a sprint.”
I like this article and it holds so much good information. How we perceive ourselves when we look in the mirror. I do it all the time. It is changing that “mind-set” and using “affirmations” .
Fitness is an important part of my life. The body feeling so much better with regular exercising helps me to be committed to my workouts.
It just feels good!!! 
