I'm working on Christmas Eve...

It's 8:15am on Christmas Eve. I'm sitting in Starbucks typing this. This is not where I want to be. By now I'm sure my kids are awake and running around the apartment. I'd like to be home keeping the baby away from the tree and attempting to get the oldest to stop running back & forth through the apartment for maybe 5 minutes. Actually on 2nd thought, Starbucks is a lot more peaceful. Just kidding...kind of. So why am I here in Starbucks? I'm here because I'm committed to running/building my business. This means there are days/holidays where I have to sneak out of the house for a few hours to get some work done.

I'm only trying to pat myself on the back a little here. The main reason I'm telling you this is to show what it means to be committed something. There will be times where you'll have to do some things that you don't necessarily want to do. This is important to realize, especially as you're probably thinking about New Year's resolutions.

With that in mind here's a list of questions you can ask yourself to ensure that you have success with your resolutions. These questions will help you map out when the uncomfortable times are going to show up. This will allow you to prepare for them to make them as comfortable as possible.

• Why?- why is this resolution important to you? Answer that. Now why is that answer important? Repeat this process 3 more times. This should get you to down to your most base motivation. This is what you'll come back to when things get tough.
• What?- what do you have to do to be successful? Physically what do you have to do? Mentally what do you have to do (this might be more important)?
• Who?- who do you need to help you be successful? Do you need to hire a coach or someone else?
• Who?- who do you need to clear this with? Not that you need permission but you have to realize when you change your life it will affect the people who are closest to you. So you need to speak to with your significant other and family members and close friends to get their support.
• Where?- can you do this at home? Do you have to go somewhere? If so how are you going to get there?
• When?- when are you going to do it? Is it always going to be the same time or will it have to change weekly or daily? If it does have to change, have you scheduled in all the changes?

As you can see most of these questions lead to other questions. The thing is the more of these questions you can answer ahead of time the higher the likelihood of success. Answering these questions is like having GPS for a road trip. Good GPS will help avoid traffic slow downs and roadblocks. So take time to ask and answer these questions.

Ok I have to get back home with the kiddos and continue in the Christmas fun. Have a very merry Christmas and enjoy the time with friends and family.

Success in 2019 begins today.

It what may have seemed like a blink of the eye, 2018 is pretty much over. Thanksgiving is long gone at this point and Chanukah started last night. So now begins the time when you should be reflecting on how the year went for you. What went well and what didn't. Is there anything that you can improve upon? Is there anything need or can do without? Ok, now that we got that out of the way. What's the plan for 2019?

I'm all for reflecting on the past and all but here's the thing: there's not much you can do about it at this point. So do some reflection and learn as much as you can from the past year but don't linger too long. Use the time that you've spent worrying about that thing from 6 months ago (that no one else remembers) to start coming up with a plan for how you're going to spend the next 6 months.

I feel like what usually happens is New Year's day arrives and people start making resolutions with no clue about how they are going to make them into reality. Other than using grit and resolve. Spoiler alert: that doesn't work. (Which is why half the people reading this are thinking about or even trying to remember what their 2018 resolutions were.)

So instead let's try to make 2019 different. The way to do that is by coming up with an action plan now. Don't wait until January. If you do, you'll lose half of the month just trying to figure out what you want to do and the logistics of how you could possibly do it.

I'd also say if you want to be successful at 2019 resolutions, think beyond 2019. What do you want your life to be like in 2020 or 2025 even? Thinking about and having long term goals (l year plus) gives you something to work toward and a way to measure progress.

The measuring of progress is key. When you only have short term goals, it becomes a "did I" or "didn't I" situation. Either you accomplished the goal or you didn't. If you didn't you that can be stressful psychologically which can affect how you handle the next goal.

Having long term goals allows you to ask if you got closer to accomplishing them. Even if you miss a short term goal you can get closer to long term ones. This relieves some of the stress and allows you to keep momentum. Having a long term goal also allows you to change direction. Meaning you can scrap a short term goal for something else that will get you to your long term goal faster.

All of this is to say that, if you want to be successful with resolutions in 2019 then that process has to start now and you have to consider well beyond 2019. Like I said appreciate all that went well in 2018 and learn from whatever didn't go so well. Just don't let time spent doing that slow down your success in 2019.

Super Bowl Reset

A couple of weeks ago, I talked about how the third week of January is when people fall off the resolution wagon. I imagine Super Bowl Sunday is really the day where people let go of any pretense of a healthy resolution for the year. (If you were at a Super Bowl party  yesterday, did any one bring up New Year resolutions?) Let's be honest, for a lot of people  the food at the party is more important than the game itself. That brings us to today; the day after the Super Bowl. Today can be your reset. I was reminded of this by a Facebook memory. Apparently a few years ago, I made a public proclimation to not drink (adult beverages) for a month after the Super Bowl.

It reminds me of the old Chris Farley Saturday Night Live sketch "Diet Starts Monday". Super Bowl Sunday, like New Year's Eve and Mondays, serve as a great breaking point to start something new or to pick something back up.

There are a lot of these moments throughout the year. They're usually around major holidays and they give us these natural assessment points. For people with kids these might coincide with breaks from school. For the working folks, it could be any of those days where you get a paid day off.

All is not loss if your resolution has fallen by the wayside. You can use today, Super Bowl Monday, to start over (today should be a holiday anyway, it's not like any of us are being that productive). Then check on your progress around Easter/Passover. If you keep it up until then, great keep going. If you don't, reset.

The point here is that starting, stopping and starting again is still progressing. Sure it would be great to start and never stop but life sometimes has other plans. There's no need to concede and wait until the next New Year. You can start over on the next holiday, major event or better yet tomorrow even.

Merry day after Christmas. I hope you got to spend the weekend the way I did, surrounded by family and food. In this case I was with my Alli's family. This goes to strengthen my point. I've been spending Christmas with wife's side of the family basically for the past 10 years.

We hosted our first Christmas this year. Other than location, not much changed though. The food was pretty much the exact same; there was the addition of a delicious apple crisp.

This happens on my side of the family too (we do Thanksgiving with my side). People may bring a new food but the traditional foods never get replaced. People even take over recipes when family members pass away. Alli makes her grandmother's "knot" cookies every year.

This brings me to my point. As we come up to the new year, lots of you will have weight loss goals. In the search for advice some of you may come across memes or (even worse) nutritional/fitness experts who say things like "food is only fuel" or "food is just for nourishment".

Don't listen to them. People who say things like this suffer from one of two things:

1. they've unfortunately never spent any time with friends and family surrounding a table full of food and laughing their asses off
2. they're stupid.

I guess there's a third possibility in which they check both boxes. The point is if you want to lose weight and, more importantly, keep it off then you need to have a good relationship with food.

Treating food as simply a fuel source means you'll skip out on hanging out with friends or you'll be the miserable, hungry cousin at the next family function. Neither of these situations lead to weight loss. As a matter of fact they usually lead to you alone eating a pint of ice cream and hating yourself.  Again, this doesn't lead to weight loss.

So if weight loss is one of your goals for the new year, then you need to learn to enjoy food without over doing it. You need to learn be around food without being tempted by it. You need to learn to appreciate food for what it is (fuel) and the experiences and enjoyment that it provides.

What are the foods you look forward to at every family event?

Holiday Party Survival Tips

It’s the most wonderful time of year. You’ve got your office holiday party. You’ve got your significant other’s office holiday party. Then there is your family holiday party. Can’t forget about the in-laws’ party. Oh and this is the one time of year all of your friends will surely get together for some merriment. Also you can’t miss little Timmy’s holiday pageant which will be followed by the parents’ reception. With your calendar as booked as it is, it’s easy to let your exercise/fitness regime fall by the way side. All of a sudden you’ll be canceling trips to the gym so that you can make it to the next event. I still haven’t even mentioned Aunt Betty’s homemade Christmas cookies and all the passed hors d’oeuvres and the drinks.

If you let it things can get out of control very quickly. So here’s a few tips and tricks that you can use to get through the next few weeks without sacrificing all of the year’s hard work or to help you get the new year off to a great start.

1. ENJOY YOURSELF: it’s easy to read those first two paragraphs and have anxiety start rushing in and make you resent having to go to all these parties. Listen, the holidays are about celebrating life and enjoying time with friends and family. Do that. If you’ve spent the whole year practicing good habits and consistently working out then enjoying yourself at a few parties is not going to undo that. The stress relief may even lead to some positive changes.
2. BE PROACTIVE: you’re probably already receiving invites to all of these parties. You also probably know what your gym schedule is. Plan accordingly. The company holiday party is the same time as your favorite kickboxing class? Well when else does the instructor teach the class? If you usually work out in the evening, you may have to get up early to hit the gym in the morning.
3. EAT AHEAD: if you’re hungry you’re not going to be able to turn down that bacon wrapped scallop or that bacon wrapped asparagus or that bacon wrapped anything anything else. Avoid bacon and other temptations, by eating you’re normal healthy meal before you get to the party. This will also help you to not get as drunk as quickly if you choose to drink.
4. KEEP A DRINK IN HAND: just not an alcoholic one. If you don't want to drink, or drink excessively, keep a glass of water with lemon in your hand. Here’s the trick though, ask the bartender to put the water in a tumbler glass (for some reason bartenders like to shame those who are drinking water by putting it in a different glass). Why is this a good idea? Because at parties a common icebreaker is to ask “do you need a drink?”. Well water looks exactly like vodka. Now you don’t have to be in the awkward position of turning people down or explaining why you’re not drinking.
5. SCHEDULE DEPARTURE: don’t walk in the party without knowing exactly when you’re going to leave. Then stick to that time. The longer you’re at the party, the longer you’ll have to fight the food and booze temptations. Eventually you will lose. Having a departure time will make sure you speak to whoever you want and need to in a timely fashion. When you know you have 20 minutes before you have to leave and you still have to search out your boss, you’ll skip the long wait at the bar.

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