EP #7: Making New Year's Resolutions Stick: The Power of Discipline and Community Support

Year after year, we set resolutions with the best of intentions, only to find them gathering dust by spring. But what if the key to turning those goals into reality lay hidden in the fabric of our motivations and the structure of our support systems? Martha and Jeremy dissect the anatomy of habit formation and the critical role discipline plays in bridging the chasm between aspiration and achievement. Our conversation is a treasure trove of revelations, providing you with actionable strategies to make your resolutions stick. We're not just talking about setting goals; we're redefining the way you approach personal growth.

Martha brings her wealth of experience from managing breast cancer centers, to spotlight the undeniable impact that a nurturing community and relentless positivity have on conquering life's hurdles. Whether it's battling illness or bolstering your resolve to keep a New Year's promise, the support we cultivate is our lifeline. We introduce the 'Book of Awesomeness,' a mighty tool in your arsenal to chronicle triumphs and re-ignite motivation when the road gets rough. Let's embark on this quest together, embracing self-compassion and recognizing that each small victory is a step towards a bountiful and successful year ahead.

To get your journey started, visit:  https://inspireweightloss.com/

or contact: (954) 837-8811

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to the Inspire Weight Loss Davy podcast. Drug-free, sustainable, life-changing weight loss. Here's your host, martha Savloff.

Jeremy: 0:14

Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of the Inspire Weight Loss podcast. Everyone, happy New Year. It is 2024. I am your co-host, jeremy Wolf, joined by, of course, your host, martha Savloff. Martha, it's been a while since we've seen each other.

Martha: 0:32

Yes, happy New Year. My favorite holiday. Honestly, I love the New Year for some reason.

Jeremy: 0:40

I mean, I got to imagine it has a lot to do with what you do with your business and Inspire Weight Loss, because everybody tends to make New Year's resolutions and set up for a great and prosperous year. But I think oftentimes and I'm guilty of this, as many others are the year comes around. We make all these resolutions to ourselves and say we're going to do this, that and the other, and then a lot of times, a month goes by, two months go by and we're back to our same old habits, same old routines. So I thought what a better time to talk about that topic and why it is that people tend to fail with all these resolutions that they make around the New Year's. So please enlighten us, share your expertise.

Martha: 1:23

Yeah, this is definitely a hot topic for right now, and it's actually one that we all need to do. Like life works in seasons, and so when we have the New Year, it's like a new beginning, a new season, new opportunities, and I know it's just like the next day, but really it's about mindset, right?

Jeremy: 1:44

Absolutely, it's about mindset.

Martha: 1:45

So the New Year's resolution is getting like a bad rep, and that's because it's kind of known that the resolutions just roll over, like back in the day minutes, when minutes used to roll over for cell phones. Well, it's like resolutions just roll over to next year, next year, next year, and then when you're past by, you're still writing the same thing. So I want to talk about why do resolutions often fail? Because, man, that's happened to me and I'm sure it's happened to most people that are listening or watching.

Jeremy: 2:23

It's called human nature, right, yeah, we're creatures of habits, and forming new habits, especially as you get older, becomes more and more and more challenging, and you really got to be diligent to continue with that yeah.

Martha: 2:38

And there's different reasons why that happens in people's lives and, for example, the first one. The first one is what's your driver? And we talk about that as fire weight loss, because your driver of wanting this resolution or this goal has to be deep, because if it's not deep, then it's not important enough to do it, like you tend to push it to the side, push it to all. I'll start on Monday. Oh, I'll do this on Tuesday, because then everything else takes presidents over that. So the first thing is what's your driver? Why is this important for you? Why are you writing this down as a goal and making sure that it's a good, deep driver that makes sense.

Jeremy: 3:26

Oh, absolutely. It's funny that you mentioned that. And yeah, it's so important to have a higher of why and everything that you do. I was listening to a podcast yesterday I think it was Joe Rogan and David Goggins. I went on a run, I was listening to a podcast and Goggins was talking about how and I say this all the time everybody in society is looking for a quick fix. That's right. I want seven minute ads. I want to get a overweight, so I want to get a tummy tuck. I want to do the surgery, but that stuff tends to not stick because you're not putting in the work, you're not putting in the pain, the suffering, you're not doing what's required to stick with it. So when you actually go through the blood, sweat and tears of the process to get better like that, you tend to create those habits that we talked about that keep you there and keep you moving forward. So, yeah, and to do that, you absolutely have to have a higher purpose. It can't just be a surface level thing.

Martha: 4:19

For sure, 100%, and it's like anything. How I say it to our clients? It's like everything requires maintenance. You wash your car one time, that doesn't mean it's going to be clean for the rest of your life. You change the oil one time Doesn't mean that you're going to have fresh oil. The rest we're the same. So your driver for that goal has to be deep. And one of the things that our society does limited and it gives us a lot o fo great. These things that happen for provide us with a better and they use this word very frequently, but it's not that effective is a word motivation, Like I need to be motivated to do this or I need motivation. And you know what the problem with motivation is that motivation comes in goals.

Jeremy: 5:03

And you can be motivated.

Martha: 5:05

Today, you know, to go out and work, or go out and go for a run, or for tomorrow you may not be. So what's going to happen? You're going to submit to not being motivated, that they just not do it, or you're going to be disciplined.

Jeremy: 5:23

And that's what took the word out of my mouth, did I Well? Yeah, no, you have to be disciplined, because this discipline trumps motivation. If you're not motivated, but you're disciplined, you'll still do the thing that you don't want to do, and that's a drive you to success.

Martha: 5:36

And people cling to that word so much motivation.

Martha: 5:39

I need motivation, I'm motivated and really that we need to change that word to discipline in order to really, you know, tackle goals and do things that we want to accomplish in life, in every aspect of our life, not just weight loss or, you know, our weight right, okay. So number two not setting the proper action steps. There's a saying that I don't dislike, but it's not. For me is not true, and it's knowledge is power. That is to me. That's just not true, because you can have knowledge of all sorts of things, but that doesn't mean you do anything with it. I feel like the proper is applied, knowledge is power, right. So applied is an action, applied is an action word. So, you know, you have these New Year's resolutions and you're like yeah, I want to lose 20 pounds.

Martha: 6:38

I want to you know this and that and it's like okay, so like, what are you going to do to reach that goal?

Jeremy: 6:44

Like, what is your plan? What are your action steps to get there?

Martha: 6:47

Yeah, they stop at the thought of the goal but they don't take it to the next step, which is like properly setting goals or action steps. I should say right, and it's not just like any action. So, oh, I'm going to start tomorrow and you know, go, go run, whatever. It has to be like specific actions, like one action has to have specific things. So what I mean by that, it's like okay, so what's the act? What is the goal for? Number one? Number two what's the action I have to take for that goal? Number three is that action measurable or not? Number four like is it achievable? Like I'm going to go run five miles tomorrow? There's no way I'm going to run five miles tomorrow. You know, it's like you have to have realistic you know action items right.

Martha: 7:39

So make it. Make it like little, small baby, step action. Make sure that you can get there. It's irrelevant enough for you. And then time bound, like give yourself time, like I want to hit this goal. I want to, I want to achieve this goal with these action items and by this date. That's what you want to do because, if it's just like I'm going to. I'm going to lose 20 pounds this year, you know. And then there's nothing to back it up. Guess what's going to happen? That rollover. I talked about earlier.

Jeremy: 8:13

You'll be saying the same thing next year. But no, you'd be amazed. People would be amazed that haven't done this before and I try to do it as much as I can, but I'm guilty as much of the next person. You tend to get overwhelmed by these big goals. But when you break things down into small, incremental steps where you just do something very, very small daily and and you know it could be a few different things, and after a week, two weeks, three weeks, where you start building those daily habits and it becomes so second nature that you don't even think about it anymore and you feel like, yeah, it's not a chest, it's not a chore anymore, it's something that you wanna do. You just kind of break it down into little, little pieces and build up from there.

Martha: 8:58

So Sure, I tell clients that you can train your body to do anything, and you really can. The hard part is that people operate in the emotion. So, for example, what do you feel like eating today? So you're basically allowing your body to tell you what to eat, but you have to flip that. You have to take control of your body and say this is what I'm going to feed my body today. You see the difference. So, if we are intentional about going about it that way, then we can train our bodies to do anything, anything at all.

Martha: 9:45

One of the things that we've talked about before is me waking up early in the morning. So I have to say though that was my 2023 New Year's resolution was to wake up earlier, and I did it. It's not a rollover. I'm very proud of myself, but that's a tough one for me. But, yeah, it's like take control of yourself. Don't allow something else to be the driver or the decision maker. Don't let your body be the decision maker. You need to be the decision maker. What happens with your body? So, yeah, you can train your body to do anything. Okay.

Martha: 10:20

Number three focus on the process, not the end results.

Martha: 10:25

So we've touched on that right, like they focus on the end results instead of the process, and that's where the action steps come in. Number four procrastination versus consistency, and one of the things that I find that listen, it's for real, jeremy, like I get it, I'm guilty of it Things become a priority before myself, and one of the big ones is, like employers, like employees, are so busy and they have to work, and they work long hours and this and that, and I get it a hundred percent, but at what cost? Right, you have to see, create those boundaries that allow you to be a priority, because if you wanna continue working that way, you wanna continue taking care of your family and become a grandma and be able to run around with people, then you need to be or run around with your grandkids. You need to be a priority, because if not, you're gonna work yourself to the place that you're not gonna be able to do those things. So one of the things that's one of the reasons procrastination happens is because, again, setting aside and making everything else a priority.

Jeremy: 11:43

Yeah.

Martha: 11:44

Yeah, number five support system.

Jeremy: 11:48

Ah, yes, yes, support is very, very key and integral to this process.

Martha: 11:53

Yeah, I have to tell you, jeremy, at one point in my career I was managing breast cancer centers and we were seeing patients in the full spectrum, where they're stage one to stage five, and the ones that did the best with their treatments and they were able to go into remission and this and that, like their process was the end result was better were the ones that had a great support system. That's how powerful it is like community is and having people around you that believe in you and are your cheerleaders. That's important.

Jeremy: 12:42

No, 100%, 100%. If you go at it alone, it could feel like you're on a desert island, stranded, especially when you're going through difficult times, and it's so important to have a support system in place that can help you through this process and pretty much everything that you do.

Martha: 13:01

Yeah, think about it like we're talking about New Year's resolutions, but I was just talking about like going through a journey of cancer, like that's major and the studies show and I lived in myself, I saw it myself that people that had a great support system around them did much better through their journey of beating cancer. Imagine everything else.

Jeremy: 13:25

Well, we're all energy and we feed off energy, right. So cancer is a negative manifestation, a negative energy. It's a disease that spreads to your body. So if you're around positive energy and positive support, that can do nothing but help your cause. So, yeah, yeah absolutely.

Martha: 13:45

And the last point, jeremy, be nice to yourself, and that's energy too, right? So what happens if people fail from their New Year's resolutions is because they're not believing in themselves. But if you don't believe it, if you don't believe that you can do it, conquer it, get it done and do it for yourself, and you're not going to.

Jeremy: 14:10

Yeah, we can be our own worst enemies. We don't give ourselves enough credit for the good things that we do. We tend to focus on all the things that we mess up and all the poor mistakes we make. But you really have to flip the switch on that and look at it through a different lens and realize that everybody makes mistakes. Everybody has problems, and the best that you can do is learn from them, as mistakes just do better, moving forward and give yourself a break. Right, life is short.

Martha: 14:37

And do that. I had to learn that myself because I was super critical about myself. I had kind of like over achiever, and that came from. That came from some kind of childhood trauma with my dad and I had some things that I had to work through. So that made me like super critical about myself and make and I had to like like show him that I have the goods. And so then when I didn't do well and I would mess up, I would be mean to myself, like, and then when I did do well, it wasn't enough, and then maybe it was enough. But am I supposed to be, you know, celebrate myself? You know, am I supposed to be like, is that arrogant? No, no, in many things I'm a badass and it's okay for me to say that Absolutely right.

Martha: 15:35

Yeah, I had to go through the process of being okay to do that, jeremy, like I had to go through a process to be able to say you know what, man, I nailed this thing. Yeah, so it's okay, you know what? One thing that's really cool that we tell clients to do is like to start a book of awesomeness.

Jeremy: 15:57

Oh, I like that Book of awesomeness.

Martha: 16:00

Yeah, so you write down on things that you kicked ass and you were awesome in, and that you nailed and you did well. And when you have a day that you're on a down and you're you're starting to think that you're not going to be nice to yourself, go to that little book, just a little tiny book that you can have with you or you can put it in your notes and on your phone, right, whatever it is and go to that book and and read it, and so you can remind yourself how many things you've accomplished and how badass you really are and it's okay to have a bad day.

Jeremy: 16:37

Yeah, it's going to happen. So, yeah, I love that awesome this book. I've done in the past, you know, journaling where I write down just three wins I had for the day. And it's funny, when you start doing that you find yourself kind of grasping like, looking deeply for those wins, and it's sometimes it's hard to find the wins. But what happens is, as you do that, like I talked about building these habits, after a week of doing it consistently, two weeks of doing it consistently, you start to, throughout your day, subconsciously look for those wins because you know that you're going to need to record them later. And then by the time you, by the time you get to the end of the day, you're like, oh, my god, I have so many I can't even fit on the page. And you're getting, you're just reprogramming and training your mind to move yourself forward for success. So, yeah, lots of, lots of golden nuggets here, lots of good stuff. 2024 is going to be awesome. I'm super excited.

Martha: 17:31

It is going to be awesome and I hope, I pray, that it's awesome for everybody that's watching or listening. You've got the goods and you be your own cheerleader, surround yourself with great people and just forget about new year's resolutions. Let's like reward it to new year's action. Let's just take action, let's do the thing, let's kill it and let's celebrate.

Jeremy: 17:58

All right, sounds good, martha, always a pleasure. Looking forward to seeing you again soon and to our listeners. Thank you, as always, for tuning in. We wish you a wonderful day and a blessed and prosperous 2024 of action and success.

Martha: 18:16

Amen to that.

Jeremy: 18:17

All right, everyone take care.

Speaker 1: 18:20

Thank you for listening to the Inspire Weight Loss Davy podcast. To get your journey started, visit inspireweightlosscom or contact 954-837-8811.