With the dawn of the New Year comes the inevitable promise to yourself, the new year resolution you make to become a healthier, fitter, calmer version of yourself. Most of us have made this resolution at least once in our life. However, as March rolls along these New Year resolutions take a back seat and are slowly forgotten to be renewed again for the next year.

Being fitter or healthier isn’t really an unscalable mountain; however making massive changes or vowing to completely transform your lifestyle is just setting yourself up for disappointment. Like it is with building wealth, health also needs constant and consistent effort to grow and flourish over time.

Most people fail at completing their New Year fitness and health resolutions because they decide that from the first day onwards they’ll give up alcohol, sugar, junk, salt and anything else that is unhealthy and go on the path of fruits, oats and veggies. The fact is that habits are hard to change and need consistent incremental efforts to be broken and improved. To make sure you stay on the path undeterred you need to create specific goals that you want to achieve. This gives you purpose and helps you design your behaviour to achieve the desired result. A specific goal of losing 5 kilos is any day better than a generic “need to lose weight” as it gives you a clear cut idea of what you need to achieve and consequently helps you create a plan for achieving the said result.

Once you have your goal in place the small incremental efforts come into the picture. Taking one step at a time and repeating it continuously ensures that your mind isn’t overwhelmed by change. Converting these steps into lifetime habits is the key to good health and peace in the long run.

The other significant part in creating and sticking to your New Year resolutions is to understand your body and make plans customised to its needs. Everyone’s body is different and what suits you might not suit someone else. Jumping onto the fitness bandwagon without assessing your body’s strengths and weaknesses is akin to riding a bike without a helmet – highly risky. When you decide on a fitness plan you need to first understand if your body is fit to undertake the physical and mental challenges that come with it. A person who has the risk of developing osteoporosis cannot start jogging one fine day and not be prepared to deal with the consequences. Likewise, someone who suffers from hypothyroidism cannot go on a diet like Keto without any planning.

The above are just some examples where planning and customising can go a long way in achieving desired outcomes without problems or disappointments. When you focus on good health as a long term goal and not just a summer ready body, it is natural that you take into account your body’s abilities and limitations before embarking on a fitness journey. While the above two examples are of known medical conditions where a person should take care, but, a lot of the times individuals aren’t aware of what’s going on in their bodies. As preventive health management isn’t something that most people are concerned with, illnesses and medical conditions remain under the radar till the time they don’t cause serious problems. The way to tackle this is to make preventive tests the norm rather than an exception in your life. Getting a health check-up does not signify that there is something wrong with you, it is a just a way to ensure that the goals you’ve set for yourself can be achieved without causing any damage.

Deepak Sahni, CEO, Healthians says, “Slow and steady wins the race” is the way to go in your health transformation journey. Making efforts everyday towards your health goals is necessary and these steps need to be of a holistic nature. But before you embark on any health journey, taking an assessment of your health is very important. Preventive health tests are therefore extremely helpful in highlighting any potential risk that you might expose yourself to unknowingly.”

There’s no better time than the new year to begin your health journey. New Year signifies new beginnings, change, evolution and most of all – hope, of a better future. But to ensure what you begin with can be sustained and completed, it is essential to prepare well. Planning and comprehending your body is the first step in this journey of a thousand miles.