Real Talk: Does a New Year Actually Equal a "New You"?
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Have you been waiting for the new year to come so you can finally become a "new you"? If your answer is yes, I have some real talk to share with you on this “New Year New You” mentality. If you’ve been waiting for January 1st to “get back on track”, or to break old habits, or to “become a new you”, this episode is for you, you need to realize that nothing is changing January 1st except for the calendar year. Your obstacles will still be present, your struggles will still be hard, your lack of motivation will still be lacking. So what are you going to do about it? That's what I dive into in this episode of Embrace Your Real + help you set yourself up for success to actually become a "new you" in 2022. Are you ready?!
Ready to become a new you this year? Sign up for the honoryourbodychallenge.com here.
Love this episode? You’ll also love episode 86: 7 Steps to Setting (And Actually Reaching) Your Goals.
TRANSCRIPT:
Hey, hey, beautiful human. Can I steal five minutes of your time? I have something super important to share with you, but I promise I'll be really quick. You're listening to my weekly bonus episode of Embrace Your Real with me Julie Ledbetter. I'm about to give you a quick tip for building your confidence, honoring your body, and unconditionally loving your authentic self. Stay tuned if you're ready to embrace real. Let's get it. Let's go.
Welcome back to another bonus episode. Today, we are going to be diving into the new year, new you mentality. If you've been with waiting for January 1st to get back on track or to break old habits or to become a new you, this episode is for you. I want to help you to put those goals into perspective and help you realize that just because it's a new calendar year does not mean that those things will be easy. I want to help you actually follow through so that you can get to the end of 2022 feeling accomplished, like you actually accomplished the goals that you set out to. But before I dive in, I wanted to share this review. It comes from Brooke Murray One.
She says, "Everything a woman needs to hear. I've been listening to Julie consistently for a couple weeks now and everything she said in her podcast is everything women need to hear. Her podcasts are honest and uplifting for those days when you lack motivation and self-confidence. I just finished episode 184 and this is exactly what I needed to hear for this season of my life. For short little podcasts, she speaks volumes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you." No, thank you, Brooke, so much for your review. It truly means the world to me. If you missed it, I am actually going to be giving away a free challenge entry every single week until mid-January to someone who leaves a rating or review on Apple Podcast.
I will screenshot the review once a week. I will post it in my stories and I will give you a tag. So make sure that your review is the same as your Instagram handle, or you can write your Instagram handle in the review, but thank you in advance for the reviews. They truly do help us out. And I want to honor you guys by giving some of you guys free entries for literally just rating and review the podcast. If you have already, you can rate and interview it again. You can send in a new review, so whether that's on a specific episode or overall just how this podcast has helped you in this season of your life. Maybe you did a review a few months ago or a year ago.
You can leave another of you and I will be picking a few of you guys to give you a free entry into the 2022 Winter Honor Your Body Challenge. So don't miss out on this opportunity and go leave a review. If you don't have an Apple device, find a friend or someone that has an Apple device. It could be a computer. It could be an iPad. Just go to Apple Podcast, type in Embrace Your Real, and then just click that rating and review at the bottom. And that's all you got to do. I'll be picking some of you guys weekly to give you a free entry into the challenge. Okay, so let's dive into today's episode. I want to start out by giving you a reality check statistic.
Only 8% of people who make new year's resolutions stick to them and those who don't usually abandon them after just one week. That means that about 92% of people who set out to do something on new year's, after one week, they abandon that new year's resolution and only 8% of people typically stick to their new year's resolutions. You know what this means. A new year does not automatically mean a new you. Just because it's a new calendar year does not mean that anything has actually changed. Your obstacles will still be your obstacles. Your struggles will still be your struggles, and your weaknesses will still be your weaknesses.
Things don't just disappear or automatically get easier just because it's a new calendar year. I'm truly not saying this to demotivate you or to be a Debbie Downer, but I do want to be realistic about it and I do want to help you. Let's be realistic. It should go without saying that unrealistic resolutions are fated to fail. It is unrealistic to think that just because it's a new calendar year, you can immediately overcome a habit that you've spent years establishing or can immediately accomplish a goal that you've been trying to reach forever, but haven't been able to. With that being said, my advice to you is to not just set a new year's resolution and go into it blindfolded.
You need to set your new year's resolution and make a plan for actually executing on it. This is the biggest thing that most people fail to do. They fail to execute on the goal that they want to reach. And that's why you need to make the execution simple and clear. You need to break down all the barriers and create a simple plan of action. Ask yourself these three questions. What are your current obstacles that you're facing that are preventing you from reaching your goal? Number two, what have your previous failures been when it comes to you trying to achieve this specific goal? And number three, what are your current weaknesses? What are weaknesses that you can identify?
And these are things that you know. You know that you have a weakness with X, Y, and Z and that is preventing you from reaching your goals. You have to first address these so that you know that they are a thing. Because without you addressing them, you might know that there's something, but you're not actually addressing them so that you can make a plan of action for overcoming every single one of these things, your obstacles, the things that are previous failures that have prevented you from reaching your goals or the weaknesses that are preventing you from reaching your goals. Next, you need to write out what habits you need to do daily and weekly to reach that goal that you have.
What are the things and what are the habits that you need to start implementing daily, and what are the habits and the things that you need to start implementing weekly that will help you reach your goal? And then you need to think about what are your obstacles and struggles for each of these habits and make a plan for troubleshooting these. So when they do arise, you know what to do. But most importantly, you'll prevent yourself from that even happening in the first place. Then you have to focus on the habits, not the actual resolution. The consistency you have with these habits will automatically accumulate and lead you towards reaching your goal.
You don't need to focus on the result. You need to focus on what ultimately is going to get you that result. I actually have an entire podcast episode that goes deep into this. If you're like kind of geeking out like I am, I love this kind of stuff because I love seeing people achieve their goals. And I love achieving my goal, and I know that there is a step by step approach that you must take in order to achieve your goals. 99.9% of people that achieve their goals, you guys, they might get look easy on the outside, from Instagram. You might see all the successes, but you don't know what actually went in to actually having them reach their goals.
In episode 86, seven steps to setting and actually reaching your goals, I break it down for you. I will go ahead and link that in the show notes below, but the best way to achieve the goals that you want to achieve in the new year is acting like you're already that person. Your habit is no longer something that you do. It's something that you are. You don't work out. You are someone who works out. You don't eat healthy. You are someone who eats healthy. Do you notice the difference? The more you tell yourself that that's what you are, the more that you'll begin to believe it and the more that your actions will align with your identity.
A simple example of this is this past year, I really wanted to become better at running. Lifting weights and increasing my weight and progressive overload and getting stronger is something that I have consistently done year after year. I'm very comfortable with weights. I love dumbbell workouts. That's why I have my Movement With Julie app. But ultimately, I wanted to challenge myself this year because I noticed that something was lacking in my functional training, and that was just my cardiovascular endurance. For me, I wanted to focus on becoming a better runner.
I didn't want to run miles and miles, but I wanted to become better at running like one or two miles without feeling like it totally took everything thing out of me. This past year, I had to tell myself, "I am going to become a runner." What does a runner do? A runner consistently implements running into my weekly regimen. And like I said, I didn't want to run like miles on miles. For me, it was like, okay, I am going to choose two or three times a week to run a mile. I'm going to force myself to do that, initially force myself to do that, and create the new habit of it. And then eventually I ask myself, okay, what does a runner do?
A runner takes their time to do different styles of training so that they can get better on endurance. A runner also does HIIT training, high intense interval training. Over this past year, I've had to kind of remind myself that I am a runner, because for years and years of my life, I told myself I'm not a runner. I'm not a runner. I wouldn't consider myself a marathon runner. I have no interest in doing marathon training or marathons in general. I have so much respect for people that do, but I just love weight training so much. But I wanted to become a better runner.
For me, I had to really create that new identity when it comes to that physical goal that I had and told myself, "I am a runner. I can be a runner. Just because I haven't been a runner in the past doesn't mean that I can't be a runner in the future." If that's you, if are in a place where you're maybe pursuing something that you haven't done before, or maybe that you failed that previously, remind yourself that you have the opportunity to pursue whatever goals it is that you want to pursue.
And when you really try to link what your goal is to creating that identity in and of itself of like, what are the actions that a person who does that, what do they do, it will help you and your brain kind of connect it a lot faster, and it will be a lot easier for you to act on the actions that are needed to take. I hope that this episode kind of gave you some food for thought when it comes to the new year, new you mentality. Just remember that it's so important that you focus on breaking down the barriers and creating a plan of action.
And again, episode 86, seven steps to setting and actually reaching your goals is a very helpful episode that you can listen to, to really get nitty gritty when it comes to breaking them down, because I want you to be successful in 2022. And if you are wanting to start off the year in your healthiest, most vibrant self, I want to invite you to join the Honor Your Body Challenge. We kick off this challenge on Monday, January 17th. This four week challenge is a fabulous way to kind of kickstart the new year so that you can intentionally honor your body in three key areas, your movement, your nutrition, and your mindset. Spots are limited for this challenge.
You can actually go to honoryourbodychallenge.com and you can get on the waiting list, so that you'll be the first in line to sign up when enrollment does open on January 3rd, 2022. If you are listening to this after January 3rd, 2022, you can go to honoryourbodychallenge.com and sign up. The challenge cut-off is January 17th. That's the day that the challenge kicks off. I would love to have you inside. You can also go to honoryourbodychallenge.com to learn more, see other transformations, hear other people's stories. We've had thousands of women go through this challenge, and it is a new challenge every time, so new workouts, new recipes, new community, all of those things.
If you've done a previous challenge, you can absolutely do another challenge as well, and you get lifetime access to the workouts, to the recipes, all of it. It's a one-time payment there and I look forward to doing this alongside hundreds, if not thousands of women to kick off 2022 so that we can be our healthiest, most vibrant self. Again, the episode that I talked about in today's episode was episode 86, seven steps to setting and actually reaching your goals. I will link that in the show notes below. I hope that this episode helped you. I hope that it gave you some food for thought. Thank you so much for tuning in, and I'll talk to you in the next episode.
All right, sister, that's all I got for you today. But I have two things that I need you to do. First thing, if you are not already following me on the gram, be sure to do so, @juliealedbetter, yes, it's with an A in the middle, for that daily post workout real talk, healthy tips and tricks, and honest accountability to keep your mind and heart and check. The second thing, be sure to subscribe to Apple Podcast to never miss an episode. Thank you so much for joining me. It means the absolute world, and I'm going to leave you with one last thought.
The most beautiful women that I have met in my life are the ones who are completely confident and secure in being authentically themselves. Remember that beauty goes so much deeper than the surface. So go out there and embrace your real because you're worth it.