Put your best foot forward with an optimistic mindset to help you make this year your best yet!

Leading the new year with a positive and optimistic mindset, will make you more motivated to accomplish your goals! Re-train your brain to make positive choices, workout more, and break bad habits, so you can look and feel your very best. Here are 6 tips to jumpstart your training.

Be mindful

Practice the idea of positive affirmations and think positive. Write and say out loud your goals for a healthier lifestyle. Say when you will go to the gym and what you will (instead of not) eat for lunch. Be positive and look at the bright things in your life. Thinking about the positives instead of the negatives on a daily basis will help make you feel better and happier overall.

Surround yourself

Unhealthy influences can cause you to restart those bad habits. Surround yourself with people who support you and your goals. Your Jenny Craig consultant can also support you on healthier alternatives and meal planning to help you toward a weight loss goal. You can also visit the Community for inspiration and motivation from fellow Jenny Craig members. And instead of following unhealthy restaurants on social media, take time to absorb information about health, fitness and nutrition from a website, or subscribe to a fitness magazine to learn fresh workout tips.

Meditate

Whether it’s first thing in the morning with the sun streaming through your windows or it’s at a yoga class after work, take a few minutes to meditate every single day. Meditation is proven to lower your blood pressure, reduce stress and clear your mind and improve your immune system, while connecting and healing your mind and body.

Pick and choose

Happy hour or a jog around the park? You know which one is definitely healthier for you. Retrain your mind to make healthy choices. Instead of eating out with your partner or friend on Friday night, try going ice skating together. It’s okay to suggest to the friend who only wants to eat junk food and watch a movie that you two should grab tea and go for walk. Fill your kitchen with healthier snack alternatives, so when you’re on-the-go, you can make the choice to eat a handful of veggies, rather than hitting the drive-thru.

Make it a game

The key to re-training your mind is to exercise it. We know it seems counterintuitive to sit in front of a computer to play a memory game, but doing just that for only a few minutes a day can actually help you make healthier choices throughout your day. Memory games improve your ability to concentrate and choose the better option, like picking an apple over a bag of potato chips in the afternoon. 

Exercise your willpower

Exercising 30-minutes of day can actually re-train your mind. Researchers now know that the same chemicals that are released when you get moving, like dopamine and serotonin, are directly linked to creating positive thoughts when you exercise. So not only are you building muscle while in a cardio class, but you’re also creating new nerve cells and boosting production of neurons that say working out is fun!