Back to Basics

 It’s that time of year again…  Everyone is making hellaciously long lists of what they plan to accomplish in the New Year.  

We create these huge lists, these all or nothing plans; wild plans where we’re throwing everything away, turning our schedule on its head, creating a routine that doesn’t fit our lifestyle, spending big money to prep for the idea of doing something rather than just getting started.  We try it for a week, struggle in the foreignness of it all and give up. 

We are immediately disenfranchised with our own idea and go down the negative self talk rabbit hole like a kid on a slip n’ slide.  That’s the new year’s resolution course we all seem to repeat year after year.

We need a revolution instead of a resolution.  We need to turn away from old habits.  We need to aggressively go after something else.  We need to put our efforts into something that matters to us; a revolution!  Whether that’s a hobby, a business, a side hustle, our family, our friends, our community, nutrition, fitness, mindset… whatever it is the resolution hasn’t worked in the past.  We wouldn’t still be trying to get 2004’s resolution crossed off the list if we all didn’t know a resolution expires in mid-February and we’ll just try again.  

With that, a revolution doesn’t mean that everything you are doing is failing.  What it does mean is pick something to revolutionize in your life first.  

Next, we need to stop making everything so complicated.  There, I said it.  Ninety-nine  percent of the time we are to blame for failing in our own commitments.  It’s not because we don’t want it badly enough but because we made it so complicated we can’t figure out our own plan to keep it going.  

We need to get back to basics.  We need basic nutrition, basic workouts, basic relationships, basic business, basic routines, basic systems in place…  basic, basic, basic.  

Somehow that word has gotten a bad connotation but the truth is there is nothing wrong with basic.  Simplicity wins over complication every time.  

So often we find some hair-brained get rich/skinny/brilliant/perfect plan presented to us.  It sounds too good to be true and honestly,  it is.  It usually starts with throwing out all your ____.  Get rid of _____  so you won’t be tempted!!  Stop speaking or listening to these people and only surround yourself with those people…and so on and so on.  

Is that really what you want?  Do you really want to throw away all your chips and cookies and candy so you can be healthy?  Or do you want a plan that allows you to indulge and the ability to stay on track the majority of the time?  Do you want to workout for three hours four days a week, doing all the cardio and exercises you hate?  Or do you want to block out 20-30 mins 5 or 6 days a week with a program you actually look forward to?  

We find ourselves stuck and unhappy because somehow when we were planning to do the simple work we convinced ourselves this hair brained idea was better.  It’s so complex it must be better.  More steps means more results, right?  

Wrong!

Nothing but real work gets real results.  Nothing but what you will consistently do will bring honest change.  And the easiest way to make that happen is to keep it simple.

You don’t have to do it all at once.  You don’t need a complete overhaul in your life to be happy, healthy, successful, loved, valued or achieve your dreams. 

Keep it simple!  Keep it basic!

Here’s some simple tricks to help in a few different areas of life:

Nutrition

-commit to drinking ½ your body weight in ounces of water daily and drink 20 oz to start each day.  

-eat a serving of veggies at every meal 

-track your eating along with your emotions; if you see a correlation you can start making different decisions

Fitness

-commit to moving your body for 20-30 mins everyday; a walk, yoga, get a program, join a gym (in fact I know a girl that has a whole suite of at home workouts & accountability groups for just this thing - holler at me if your curious)

-pick something (push-ups, squats, planks, etc..) one move you can do anywhere, anytime and do it everyday.  For example if you picked push-ups everyday do 10 push-ups of 5 varieties

-stretch

Relationships

-set healthy boundaries

-communicate how you feel, what you think 

-make expectations clear

Personal Development

-spend 10 mins daily pouring into yourself with a book, podcast, blog, music; something that rejuvenates your mind and lifts your spirits

-find a hobby; breath life into an old hobby or find something you’ve wanted to try and block out some time to work on that weekly

-pick an aspect of your business or home life you’d like to improve, find an expert or someone you admire and ask about their systems  

These are just surface scratching suggestions but when you decide to implement a simple system for just one area and you see improvement made it starts touching other areas of life and improving them too.  Get back to basics.  The journey can be long but the benchmarks along the way are worth it especially when you know every day you are one simple step closer than you were the day before.  

Get back to basics, keep it simple and welcome to the revolution!