Tag: New Year’s Resolutions

Living Out of the Blue

Christina BruniLeave a comment

The year ends soon.

The advent of January brings out the focus on New Year’s resolutions.

You can click on my goal-setting Category to read blog entries about the Changeology book 5 Steps to Realizing Your Goals and Resolutions.

I’ve used this 90-day action plan to set and carry out numerous goals in the last 3 years.

I would like to talk about goals and resolutions in this blog again.

How sometimes you reach a point where you shout: “Enough!” or basta as Italians would say.

What I know with confidence:

A change that happens out of the blue is not always sudden or quick. Your discontent with an aspect of your life was most likely percolating in your mind.

This subconscious brewing leads to the day when the water in the coffeepot whistles because it’s reached boiling.

This is how you’ve come to do something different after months–or even years– stuck in an old familiar behavior.

The day comes where you shout: “Enough!”

The point is that any serendipitous change should not be discounted or questioned. In fact I’m not so quick to abandon one change I’ve decided to make.

Waking up one day and deciding: “Today is the day” is the beauty of self-change. It can happen at any time in a person’s life.

Having lived through the pandemic for 9 months it’s possible that you and I are giving birth now to an idea a plan a Self that has been growing inside of us.

Should you find yourself suddenly faced with the desire to make a change or two I say: go with this and go for it.

The time is now. And for goal-setting I will once again recommend Changeology: 5 Steps for Realizing Your Goals and Resolutions.

2021 can only be better. I firmly believe this. Cheers.

Bruni’s 3-Month Challenge

Christina BruniLeave a comment

I want to write about goal-setting again.

I haven’t ever had a New Year’s resolution. I don’t make New Year’s resolutions.

Again I refer readers to the book Changeology for realizing goals and resolutions using a scientifically verified 90-day action plan.

My own 3-Month Challenge that I’ll record and document in here is to do two things:

Cook my own dinners 4x/per week. Do a walk-/run on the treadmill 1x/per week.

Owing to a two-week stretch at holiday time I hadn’t exercised. I’ve returned to lifting weights 2x/per week.

One book that is out of print that I ordered in New condition from an Amazon seller is Pretty Intense by race-car driver Danica Patrick.

This book could help any reader as you embark on setting goals in and out of the gym.

It’s a fitness book that is equally for men and women. Parts of the book cater to women. Other parts are for everyone.

After checking four fitness books out of the library I returned the other three.

Pretty Intense has a number of flaws that an ordinary reader wouldn’t pick up on.

For one, Patrick recommends canola oil as a healthy oil. No, no, no it is not–read the book How to Be Well by Dr. Frank Lipman for the inside scoop on which oils are healthy and which aren’t

Even with this glaring factual error I bought the book solely to try out a few of the recipes the race-car driver lists in her book.

Her 12-week HIIT or high-intensity interval training exercise plan I have no use for either.

The allure of this book for me was the chapters on getting mentally fit.

Patrick talks about creating a WOman cave–a separate room in your home or a section of a room that’s all yours to be free to decorate any way you want and do hobbies in that give you joy.

I plan on referring to the ideas in Pretty Intense in the next three months as I wind through the winter focusing on the two goals I listed.

In fact, I have already consistently been cooking my own dinners 4x/per on most weeks.

In a coming blog entry I will quote from the Patrick book to convince readers to buy a copy of the book.

I read the Amazon reviews of Pretty Intense. A reviewer with a name that is traditionally a man’s name said that they thought Patrick was a stuck-up entitled princess.

Then this person heard Patrick talk on a radio show. After hearing her speak the reviewer said she was actually nice and feminine, he was surprised.

As if a person who identifies as having a female gender should only be feminine and not be unconventional in how she expresses her personality.

This reviewer or was it another one referred to Patrick’s body and her (in their view) lackluster ability as an athlete.

Yet again, it’s okay for a white male to be average and ordinary. It’s not okay in other people’s eyes for a woman to screw-up.

And it appears it’s not okay for a woman to have a fit body, and show off that body.

Owing to my own distaste of nearly naked woman appearing in fitness photos I decided not to insert a photo of the book cover for Pretty Intense.

On the cover Patrick appears in only a bikini top and body shorts.

I don’t care how fit and trim anyone’s body is. I’m simply dismayed at the focus on a person’s body and gender as signifying traits that identify who they are.

In a future blog entry I might insert a photo of myself at the gym wearing my gear that covers my body.

The judging of women, of anyone, that continues to go on in American society is something I don’t like. I abhor stereotyping people.

In fact, I’m an ordinary, average person. Unlike most people, I’ve made fitness the number-one priority in my life.

I’m not keen to preach to others or preen in front of others.

I simply think that the goals I’ve achieved over the years can be guideposts for others who are starting their own reinventions in life.

My 3-Month Challenge I will record here in an upbeat, cheerful voice.

A lot of what I’ve wanted to achieve has already happened. In coming blog entries I’ll talk about the specific methods I used for achieving these new goals.

I’m a fan of making positive changes at any time in your life. You’re not ever too old to reinvent yourself and go after a goal. Or two. Or three.

Won’t you join me in this journey?

 

Changeology: Step Two: Prep

Christina BruniLeave a comment

In Step Two: Prep you write down your S.M.A.R.T. goal that is Specific Measurable Attainable Relevant and Time-Specific.

Using my resolution as an example:

Specific:

To gain back the energy to cook my own dinners 4 times per week. To continue to exercise at the gym through the spring.

Measurable:

Lift weights 2 times per week. Pound the treadmill once per week.

Buy food online. Bring food in Rachel Ray insulated tote to make lunch at my job. Have salads 3 times per week for lunch. Eat only organic chicken. Bring fruit and yogurt to job to have as a snack.

Attainable:  This is realistic as I’m not seeking to lose 50 pounds in one month or do some other extreme thing.

Relevant: The goal is one I set. It wasn’t a resolution that another person imposed on me or wanted me to achieve.

Time-Specific: The Changeology method has a 90-day time frame for completion.

The other prime objective in Step Two: Prep is to ask people to be members of your change support team.

This week I’m going to enlist a fitness professional.

Coming up next week I’ll report on Step Three: Perspire.

 

 

New Year’s Resolution

Christina BruniLeave a comment

My goal is imperative and I’ll tell you why:

My father at the end of his life had stage 3 colon cancer that spread to his liver.

Though I don’t know that this type of cancer is can be inherited I’m not taking my chances..

It might not seem fair that hard work is required to succeed at a goal.

It takes mental work; physical work; emotional work; and spiritual work to get what you want in life.

My goal is to gain energy and achieve peak fitness.

The sub-goal is to have salads 3x per week for lunch.

To do this I will order food online and bring it to my job in the Rachel Ray insulated tote.

I’ve long advanced in this blog that eating healthful food can improve a person’s mood.

Two other goals I’ve achieved so far have contributed to having an elevated feeling.

They have been acted on using the Changeology book plan.

In the coming blog entry I’ll talk about Step Two: Prep

New Year’s Resolutions

Christina BruniLeave a comment

It can be hard to go outside in the arctic chill when you live in the Northeast. Our minus 2 degree temperature requires staying inside our apartments and houses.

I say: plan your goals today and execute them in the early spring.

Better yet use your birthday as the start-date of a goal-setting plan.

To better be able to achieve your goals read the book Changeology: 5 Steps to Realizing Your Goals and Resolutions.

The author details a proven method for making lasting changes.

It requires a 90-day commitment. This method is what successful people use to carry out New Year’s Resolutions.

I will talk more in coming blog entries about this kind of goal-setting.

For now I say: stay inside and keep warm. Only go outside in this freezing chill when you absolutely have to. Take car service instead of having to wait for a bus when you can afford to do so.

New Year’s Resolutions

Christina Bruni3 Comments

I don’t ever make New Year’s resolutions.

One thing I like to do in January is spring cleaning. It’s the perfect time to donate a bag of items to the Salvation Army or charity of your choice.

A person should set goals at the time in their life that it makes sense to do so not because of a date on the calendar like January 1st.

For instance I joined a gym in March–at the start of spring. Spring is the season of rebirth and rejuvenation so if you ask me this is a great time to start taking action to achieve a goal.

Too often New Year’s resolutions are too vague or broad like “I want to lose weight.” Why do you want to lose weight and how much did you want to lose and what are the steps (sub-goals) you will take to accomplish this?

A goal should be SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-sensitive. You should give yourself what I call a “lifeline” for achieving a goal not an impossibly restrictive deadline.

It’s not the end of the world if you don’t achieve a goal by the time you wanted to make it happen. In this case you might have to change your goal or change what you do to achieve the goal. Sometimes abandoning a goal is what really makes sense.

For instance I wanted to take up running and I didn’t ever do this which is fine. I wanted to travel to Barcelona and I haven’t done this either.

One goal I absolutely did do when I was a young woman was to lose 20 pounds when I was overweight. You can click on my Nutrition category and Fitness category to read about how I did this.

I will talk about goal setting next in the context of mental health treatment.

Really any “treatment plan” should be a collaborative effort between you and your treatment provider not a goal that the doctor or therapist unilaterally foists on you.