New Year’s Resolutions for the Heart
The annual rite of making life-changing resolutions is almost upon us. We make ‘em and we break ‘em.
Mark Twain said…
Yesterday, everybody smoked his last cigar, took his last drink and swore his last oath. Today, we are a pious and exemplary community. Thirty days from now, we shall have cast our reformation to the winds and gone to cutting our ancient shortcomings considerably shorter than ever.
The University of Scranton, Journal of Clinical Psychology provides some very interesting statistics on making resolutions, and whether or not people are successful in keeping them.
First, the Top 10 New Year’s Resolutions for 2012 were…
- Lose Weight
- Get Organized
- Spend Less, Save More
- Enjoy Life to the Fullest
- Staying Fit and Healthy
- Learn Something Exciting
- Quit Smoking
- Help Others in Their Dreams
- Fall In Love
- Spend More Time with Family
Now who could argue that these are not great resolutions and if we were all successful in attaining them 2013 would be a great year indeed. Of course not all of these apply equally to everybody. I, for example, have never been a smoker so #7 is out. I’ve been happily married for 30 years (as of Dec 27) so my wife would challenge me on #9.
As members of Our Community or caregivers for members, we have to recognize that a number of these hit close to home.
My daughter creates drafts of her Christmas list throughout the year, and I think I’ll try something similar with my New Year’s Resolutions. These are my New Year’s Resolutions for My Heart:
- Lose Weight – following my open heart surgery I lost almost 30 lbs and went from a 38 inch waist to a 34 – but I have so much more to do, because I want to…
- Enjoy Life to the Fullest – there is absolutely no doubt that I have been given a second chance at life. The condition of my heart before my surgery was dreadful. For those of you who are familiar with the arteries of the heart you’ll understand the implications of this fact – my LAD (lower anterior descending) valve, also called the “Widow Maker” was 100% blocked. I want desperately to take full advantage of the gift of a second chance that has been given to me. One way I plan to do that is by…
- Staying Fit and Healthy – this is indeed a tall order. This is going to mean doing an even better job regarding my diet. Dr. Mark Wallack, and his wife Jamie Colby, discuss an interesting perspective on diet in their book Back to Life After a Heart Crisis. They advocate “eating to live 98% of the time, and living to eat 2% of the time.” I highly recommend this book. I don’t know what my percentages are, but in 2013 and beyond they are going to get better. This also means getting in better physical shape. I improved a lot in 2012, but I can and will do better. Doing all of this is going to allow me to…
- Spend More Time with Family – it should go without saying that better health is going to allow me to be here to spend that extra time with my family. I’ve posted elsewhere about the caregiving my wife and daughter were able to give me when I needed it. I want to be able to give some of that back to them.
Statistics show that people who make explicit resolutions are 10 times more likely to succeed in attaining them than those who don’t.
Please take the time to think about your goals and aspirations for 2013 and include resolutions that will help you stay healthy, or get back to being the healthy person you want to be. It’s not easy and I speak from experience.
There will be setbacks and what seem like defeats, but there will also be advances and victories. The first time I was able to slowly jog a mile on a treadmill I broke down in tears of joy. I’ve hurt my back and haven’t been able to exercise for two weeks. There will be highs and lows…but you can and must do it.
Happy holidays to you and yours from me and my family…
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