Post-Holiday Hangover

During a Holiday break, you might start to feel guilty about your choices. You’re on the road and not in your normal environment, and it’s more likely to miss your workout a few times. Big family gatherings involve lots of tasty food and you let yourself splurge more than you’d ideally like to. Maybe the TV is on more than it usually is at home and you find yourself stuck to the couch. Speaking from experience here…

But unfortunately this could be something that slows you down and causes you to lose the positive momentum you had. If you don’t want that to be the case, here are a few things you can consider doing.

First is to earn small wins. Maybe you can’t get into a gym on Christmas Day, but you could go for a walk to get some movement in. And maybe you’re off your diet a little and not eating as healthfully as you usually do, but you choose to eat mindfully and keep yourself from over-snacking or getting seconds unnecessarily. 

While it doesn’t seem like much, these little moments do a lot for your momentum. Instead of zeroing out and going back to the beginning, getting yourself to do even the smallest fraction of something that contributes toward your goals helps you to stay aligned with them. Rather than the Holiday trip being some major step back, you find ways to generate control that keeps you moving forward. Of course ideally you hold yourself to the same high-standard you have for yourself, but if you can’t do that it’s really beneficial to hold yourself to a standard.

Then second, the more obvious point of intervention is to transition quickly back into your normal routine. There can be a ‘Holiday Hangover’ that comes as a result of previous poor choices. Bad food and more TV makes you feel more sluggish. In order to shake it off, you need to reassert yourself back into the standard you’re committed to maintaining. It may require more will-power and self-control than normal, but it’s worth the investment because it gets you back on track.

At the foundation of it all, you need a few things: Awareness of how you did and the state of your choices, accountability so that you can be honest about your level of performance, and grace to know that growth is a process that is not linear but always trending up as long as you show up for it.

If you need help incorporating any of those things  - so that you can hold yourself to a higher standard and stop undoing all of the progress you make when you step out of your normal routine - then you should check out this high-performance system that keeps you consistent even when life has other plans. It's the same one I've been using for over a decade!