How to Stick to a Healthy Holiday Plan

If you’ve been following along, I’ve set a strong intention this year to handle the holidays in a much different way. I don’t want to feel like the holidays are managing me, I want to feel like I’m managing them.

I want to feel just as healthy going into the new year as I do at the start of the holidays. So, I’ve set realistic expectations and set a plan, now it’s time to figure out how to actually stick to the plan.

Write down your goals

One thing we know about goals is that those that actually write down their goals and tell someone else about it have a far greater success rate in achieving them.

So l’ll start with writing down my goals:

• Maintain my current exercise and nutrition plan through the holidays.
• Attend 1-2 yoga classes per week.
• Purchase and wrap gifts at least one week prior to the exchange.
• Schedule (in advance) 3 holiday activities for the season.

This feels manageable and seems to hit all the areas – health, stress, organization and enjoyment.

Share your goals

Now I need to tell someone about my goals. Technically, I’m telling you all about my goals, but truly I need someone that knows me and will be with me throughout the holidays. So, I’m choosing to tell my boyfriend. He’s equally supportive of my goals as he is committed to holding me accountable or gently calling me out if I start veering off track.

It can also be helpful to tell someone who may be in a similar situation as you. This way, you can be accountability partners for each other. It can be someone you know well, or maybe even someone you’ve met on an online community, like this one!

Specifically, it can be especially helpful to share how you can best support one another. For example, if you know that you tend to slack on your morning exercise routine, you could schedule some check-ins. Tell the person that you’re going to text them at the end of each week to share how many mornings you exercised. Simply knowing that you have to report out to someone else can be motivating to get out of bed on a morning you’d rather hit the snooze button.

Or you may need someone to support you from the opposite spectrum. I know I don’t do well with scheduling in self-care or active rest (versus sleep), so I need support in making sure that I’m going to my yoga class and not burning myself out too quickly. You know yourself best, so decide what you need and plan for it.

Envision it

As a very visual personal, I love the concept of vision boards. So, if creating an actual vision board, or creating a vision board on Pinterest is helpful, go for it! Don’t over complicate it, keep it simple.