DISCOVER YOUR ZEN
Staying on Track
After you reach one of your main health goals, you may feel like you have finally “arrived” and that you can now take a break. Wrong. You still have areas you need to work on. If you put your healthy lifestyle habits and goals on the back burner, you can easily lose your focus, momentum, and motivation. To get healthy and maintain that health, you have to stay on track in order to make and meet new goals, as your life changes.
One of the biggest stumbling blocks you will face is staying motivated. Staying motivated is the key to making progress and meeting goals. Unfortunately, motivation issues don’t just affect you when you’re a beginner or when you start working on a new goal. Motivation plays a large role throughout your life. However, you can stay on track concerning your health goals with the help of a few simple adjustments.
Celebrate Your Achievements
Once you achieve a goal, you should always take time to celebrate your determination, hard work, and your overall success in reaching your goal. Celebrate by doing or getting something (related to the goal) that you could do or get before you met the goal. For example, if you toned up those upper-arms, buy a new tank top and wear it without a “cover-up” shirt. Another example might be, if you made it across the finish line at the 5k run, schedule a day at the spa, get a massage, or throw a party and invite your friends.
Do something that is fun or motivational to mark the occasion. But don’t do or get anything that does not support your healthy habits. For instance, if your goal was to lose 5 pounds before your college reunion and you did, don’t celebrate by eating 3 pieces of chocolate cake.
Depending on your health goals, you may want to work in some of the following rewards, ideas, and suggestions. While each section has ideas for that topic, you can mix and match to meet your likes and needs.
- Weight Goals – These suggestions can work well with a variety of weight goals. You may want to get a massage, sign up for a mini-marathon, have a full spa treatment, or something that aligns with your healthy lifestyle. You can also go shopping for new clothing and get a makeover. Many people try to save money as they make progress in order to splurge on a great reward.
- Blood Test Goals – This is an important goal achievement because the tests tell you how healthy you really are. The blood test should spur you on to even greater healthy habits because it’s proof that what you’re doing is working. Celebrate by having a healthy picnic with friends and family. Pick a great spot that offers a variety of activity options for your group. You might want to consider a local lake, a beach, a state park, or even a national park.
- Multiple Goals – Trips can be a great way to celebrate reaching a goal. You can adjust a trip’s length, location, and more to match the “size” of the goal. For example, meeting weekly goals may include taking a trip to see a movie, while meeting a monthly goal might include going to a favorite place for the weekend. Meeting your goal for the year or a major goal might include a longer trip or taking a cruise. Trips are also great ways to work in your other interests.
Set New Goals
Anytime you meet a goal, it’s time to set a new one. There is more to health than getting to a healthy weight or walking 10 thousand steps a day. Now you can set new goals that further refine your health.
For example, if you worked hard and lost 50 pounds, you may find that maintaining your healthier weight can be difficult. You’re no longer in “must-lose” mode because you met your goal. However, now, you need to shift into “must-maintain” mode, where your focus/motivation is more on a healthy lifestyle. Since this is a bit ambiguous, you need to set a new goal that is specific to your maintenance stage. A quick example might be to set a goal to eat a dinner salad 2-3 times a week. Once you gain ground in an area, you’ve got to hold that ground, even as you continue to make progress in other areas of your overall health.
Look at your health and decide what you can work on next. Maybe you feel that you could be more toned. If so, you may want to add toning exercises into your exercise options. Set a toning goal and create an action plan to reach your goal.
If you have achieved all of your original health goals, set new goals, such as improving your form while you work out. You might also consider expanding your cooking skills. Take a cooking class that will help you learn how to prepare healthy meals using a specific tool, utensil, or cooking method.
TODAY’S ACTION STEPS:
1) If you have been following the workout plans I’ve been providing, the Week 5 Workout Plan will start today. Log in to the Fitness App on your COMPUTER – https://doctorvenus.com/app-login/ – to access the Week 5 Workout Plan.
2) You should be exercising according to your planned routine. (You can use the workout plan I provided, if it works for you.) If you’re not ready to go FULL OUT with the workout plan yet…that’s OK. If you’ve been trying out my suggestion of creating a habit, then you may want to add on another step if you haven’t done so yet. Read through the Week 4 – Day 2 module if you’re not sure how to create this “habit chain.”
3) If you’ve been receiving the meal plans, the Week 5 (and 6) Meal Plan has been uploaded to your Fitness App. The Week 6 Meal Plan is the same as Week 5; so you should be starting the Week 6 Meal plan today.
4) Continue to meditate for at least 5 minutes each day. As I suggested in Module 6, you can now have a goal for your meditation; for example, you can aim to make this goal a better awareness of yourself (by using mindfulness) or you can aim to quiet your mind and learn to block out stressful thoughts (by using transcendental meditation).
5) Mark your calendar for our next coaching call on Saturday, December 16, at 12:30pm ET (9:30am PT). The call-in number and Zoom link will be posted on the Home Page and in your daily email the day before the call. A replay will be made available for those who can’t make the call.
6) If you have any questions about anything…let me know in the Facebook group – https://www.facebook.com/groups/discoveryourzen/
Previous ACTION STEPS:
(Not a complete list, but some important highlights.)
1) Log in to the Fitness App on your COMPUTER – https://doctorvenus.com/app-login/ – and go to the FORMS tab. If you haven’t completed the Client Agreement form and the PAR-Q form from Day 1’s ACTION STEPS, do that today and sign them. Be sure to click SAVE when you’re done. (You can not receive the meal plan and workout plan when they are released until we have those completed forms on file.)
2) If you haven’t done so yet, send an email to team@DoctorVenus.com and state whether you want a vegetarian or non-vegetarian meal plan. It will be sent to your Fitness App by the next day.
3) If you haven’t done so yet, send an email to team@DoctorVenus.com and let me know whether you want an exercise plan for weight loss (focused on burning calories) or for building/maintaining your mass. So you just need to indicate whether you want a BURN or BUILD program. It will be sent to your Fitness App by the next day.
4) Download the Set Your Goals Checklist and complete it. CLICK HERE to download.
5) Download the Program Planner that you can start using, if you wish. CLICK HERE to download.
6) Download the Kitchen Clean Out handout and use it to guide the clean out of your kitchen BEFORE you start your meal plan. CLICK HERE to download.