Ebenezer Scrooge was known for his distaste of Christmas holiday tradition. As Michael Caine so eloquently puts it in The Muppet Christmas Carol…
“Christmas is a very busy time for us, Mr. Cratchit. People preparing feasts, giving parties, spending mortgage money on frivolities.”
Let me put your mind at ease by stating that although I have a love for The Muppet Christmas Carol, I do not share thoughts with Ebenezer with regards to Christmas tradition. I am Holly Jolly.
There is a tradition that I am here to discuss that I am all for breaking away from. Our reactive approach to the New Year and making resolutions around our fitness goals.
Before you start with the “Bah-humbug” let me explain…
Our approach to our fitness goals is something better kept proactive rather than reactive during the holiday season. In our tradition of reactive, this is the typical model that we follow:
Step 1 – We approach the final six weeks of the year and suddenly find ourselves overwhelmed by schedule and the stress of preparing for the holidays and wrapping up our year.
Step 2 – Wrought by overwhelm and stress, we start to let go of the sound habits and consistency that we applied with our fitness throughout the year. Or, if we haven’t yet been able to ‘jump start’ a new fitness routine, we hang it up until January 1st.
Step 3 – Even though we have done a good thing by spending much-needed time with family and loved ones, the fact that we have completely lost the company of our fitness leaves us feeling guilty and we find ourselves lost without a path.
Step 4 – Come the New Year, we quickly seek out a new resolution so that we can climb out of the ‘hole’ that we’ve dug ourselves into over the holidays. We want to undo the last six weeks in exactly six weeks time.
Step 5 – Commence the reactive fitness tradition!
Does any of this sound familiar? If so – stay tuned for Part 2 where we are going to show you the proactive approach, a new tradition worth consideration!
