DEDICATION (OOH OOH DEDICATION...)

Perhaps it's a backlash on the New Year Resolutions but my Facebook page is full of well meaning memes declaring that life is too short and beseeching me to drink the wine, buy the artwork, order the dessert, stroll through the meadow and eat the cake. All of which I'd quite like to do but here's the pain point...

...how the bejeesus can we do all this without our lives becoming short, painful and insolvent?

And here lies the problem with half hearted mindfulness quotes from well meaning but half baked "Goorooz".

Anyone who has used mindfulness to reduce stress will agree that it's tremendously successful but needs dedication and consistency. Like earning a living or maintaining a healthy weight.

Of course we all would like to float through a summer meadow and pick the buttercups with the gentle bumble of bees and sussuration of distant trees as our soundtrack. This should be a priority in life and if we want it we can have it.

It's not going to happen from ditching the exercise class in favour of cake and telling yourself that life's too short. Or from avoiding work in favour of a lie in and stressing to finish tasks later.

Rather, if we strive to create order within our lives we have the opportunity to include more of the activities we enjoy as well as the obligations. Can you really stroll through the meadow when the deadline is overdue on a work project? I can't imagine anything LESS "in the moment".

I believe that we're all great at different things. Taking time to achieve a few goals can help us take on a few more. Some of them can be meadow strolling, art buying goals. Realistically, they're unlikely to be dessert ordering, cake eating goals.

I don't fancy taking responsibility for your work/life balance but I can help you corral the food/exercise bit and you can extrapolate from there. I'll tell you right now that it starts with a little bit of dedication and consistency. If you want a hand,email me here.

And to show how the pay off feels, here are some beautiful words from my friend and fellow fitness professional, Stuart Aitken.

"There's something amazing that starts to happen when people who have never been exposed to weight training/ bodyweight exercise/ proper exercise in general, and its got nothing to do with something like losing weight (which I'm not downplaying).

It comes from realising they can succeed in things they think they couldn't, and from proving that they can achieve, really, anything they set their mind out to accomplish. They start to become more successful, confident and happy in their day to day life, they start having better relationships with people around them and they start trying things they didn't even know existed, and succeeding at them, in all sorts of areas of their life. I love helping people lose weight, but I love helping people find out how they can become even just 1% better versions of their current selves even more."

Cake will always be available but your knees might not last the decade. Put yourself first in the right way.

Enjoy Good Health.