Keeping Your Balance

When a new year starts, we all wish for a perfect year, but it doesn’t take long to see that life isn’t really like that, right?

Life never happens in a straight line or on an even keel. There’s bound to be turbulence. It’s about keeping your balance and keeping it real. The ups and downs, twists and turns, tears and laughter, good days, bad days and challenges and wins. There will be great friendships and betrayals, great decisions and some mistakes, life and death, healthy and sick days. All these experiences give your life its different colours and it’s these contrasts, put together, that make a beautiful tapestry. When we learn and grow and gain strength and wisdom from it all, it becomes your masterpiece.

We start each year with the best intentions, to be on our best behaviour and then it doesn’t take long to slip. This is especially true when it comes to diet and weight loss goals or maybe it’s breaking your budget again or losing your temper too quickly or saying something you shouldn’t have or maybe something sad or hurtful or stressful happens to throw you off track.

We must accept there will be bumps along the way and then decide to “keep your balance”. That’s when you are less likely to be derailed and you will also appreciate your smooth sailing days more.

Here are some tips to help through 2024:

Make right choices at every moment: Take it in small steps. It’s what you do with your everyday choices that impacts you the most. Yes, the big decisions do count, but the day-to-day ones like choosing peace, picking your battles, keeping fit, not losing your temper, they are very important.

Be flexible: You don’t have to set everything in stone. You may also want to be flexible with when you take a day off or when you need time-out. It takes the pressure off when you can go with the flow.

Set realistic goals: If you do this you will set yourself up to keep up. Fifteen minutes of exercise is better than none and exercising three times a week is better than nothing at all. Committing to exercise everyday or for an hour might make you less likely to do it and who said exercise must be only at the gym! There will be days when going to the gym will not be possible but that does not mean that you have to pass on exercise altogether. Keep other options like walking the dog, a quick jog around the block or an in-door workout at home.

No guilt: We will all fall short. Aim for “progress” not “perfection”. Don’t overthink it and don’t have a sleepless night over what you didn’t do right. Learn from your mistakes, forgive yourself quickly and let go of regrets. Rule off, reset, start again and keep moving forward. Do this as often as you need to.

Stay hydrated: This always makes you feel better. Drinking more water will also reduce portion sizes at meals and will also mean you drink less high-calorie drinks like sodas and other sweetened drinks. It’s also good for digestion and flushing out toxins.

Take a break: This helps you get your equilibrium back. Getting adequate rest and good, solid sleep is priceless. Be the kindest to yourself. I always come back better from taking a break.

Do what you can: You wont get it all done, all the time. We put too much pressure on ourselves. Do your best today and tomorrow is another day.

May 2024 be your best year yet!