Time to Reassess

          Welcome to afitnewyou!  We are through January and now almost halfway into February, so I will ask again as I have been doing each post of 2018...how are you doing with your New Year's resolutions?  I am willing to bet that not even a month and a half into the new year many of you have already long forgotten them.  But as I have been saying since my first post of the year, that is OK, it is simply the time now to reassess what you have been trying to do, what has come up along the way, and most importantly, what can be done to still get you there in the long term.  Anyone who has made a resolution made for the new YEAR had done so not just for the new month, so there is a heck of a lot of time left to achieve your goals.  And if you need a little extra motivation to start again, just as you had on Jan. 1st, its the start of the Chinese New Year this Friday on Feb. 16th.  So lets reassess where you want to be and how to get there.

          One of the first places that  had I learned about the importance of reflection and assessment was during my first career, outside of the fitness industry, as an environmental scientist for a consultant company.  Our biggest clients were major oil companies that operate gas stations.  At their sites, we would have to do underground investigations in order to determine if there was any contamination occurring, and when there was, just how far it had spread.  To do this, we would have to take soil and water samples from beneath the ground, which required the use of drilling from the surface.  Unfortunately, due to not being able to see exactly what was below ground, every so often as the drill rig was operated, something would be "hit" and marred by the machinery.  This would sometimes lead to further contamination, damages that required costly repairs, and / or in a worst case scenario physical injury.  After one of these mishaps, there would be a big meeting with all involved plus company management and the client's response team.  The purpose of the meeting would be to discuss what went wrong, and more importantly what could be done to prevent the accident from occurring in the future.  Although this is a completely different field, the same reassessment of what had gone wrong, and how things could be improved applies to fitness.  If something unforeseen has arisen, just as hitting something below ground that could not be seen while drilling, a road block keeping you from reaching your fitness goals needs to be reevaluated to see how you can improve upon the process.

          The first step of reassessing where you are is to look back at what you initially identified as your goals.  If you haven't kept up with your goals and/or you have had a hard time doing so you need to reassess whether or not your goals were/are realistic.  For example if at the start of the year you had joined a gym and had a goal of getting there everyday, but you haven't been able to get there that much or at all, that might have been setting the bar too high, especially if you weren't going to the gym at all prior to joining.  Reassessing the situation would have you step back and realize that going from nothing to everything all at once was unrealistic.  The second step of the reassessment would be for you to ask yourself how do you realistically get to your ultimate goal of getting to the gym regularly.  In this example, one way this could be done is by making your goal to get to the gym simply one or two days a week for the remainder of the winter.  Then when the spring arrives, up to two to three days a week; summertime three to four, and so forth so that by the end of the year you are going regularly.  Although we cannot achieve the impossible, we can get ourselves to the next level and use that as a stepping stone to the one after that.

          The same could be said for nutritional and dietary goals.  If you had a particular goal that you were trying to reach and feel like you already have met your match, take a step back and reevaluate the situation.  Maybe you had a goal of losing a certain amount of body fat that you numbered in pounds and instead of losing you have gained.  It is OK, we aren't even a full two months into the year, there is still time to reassess what you are doing and what you need to do better.  If you were planning on changing how you eat in order to meet this goal, ask yourself what have you been doing and what you could do better.  Have you changed what you are putting in your grocery cart?  Could you do that better?  One suggestion I would have is to use an online shopping service like Peapod offered by Stop and Shop.  By shopping online for your groceries, you all but eliminate the temptation of impulse buys of items that will not help you reach your goals.  Through reassessing what has and is taking place, you create the opportunity to make a corrective change.  There is always multiple ways to solve a problem, during the reassessment process, find out what will work best for you now, and then build off of that for future gains.

          The year is still young, and again, as of today Chinese New Year hasn't even arrived yet.  If you have had a hard time meeting your fitness goals, you need to realize that you have plenty of time to get back on track as long as you reassess what has taken place.  By asking yourself whether your goals were realistic, and are you doing what you need to in order to get there, you can identify any problems that are keeping you from getting there.  This reflective process will allow you to make the changes needed to get back on track and achieve them in the long run.  Do not feel defeated, but like a football team losing at half time, go back into the locker room and ask how you can change your approach.  Reassessing your fitness goals and how you are going to achieve them is a corrective way to reach a fit new you!