Things to Cut Out of Your Life in The New Year

The New Year is upon us and with it, many a resolution is made—promises for the coming year. In your personal and professional life, it’s important to set goals and follow through, no matter how high or modest. Yet, for many, a singular resolution set, but not met, can leave you with a sense of failure. Rather than striving to meet one lofty goal, consider eliminating something that may be slowing you down or distracting you from achieving your full potential. In this two-part series, we first offer a few things to cut out of your life in order to improve your physical health.

Processed Foods
While we’re on the topic—know what you’re eating. If you haven’t started, it’s time now to begin to read the labels of the foodstuffs you buy at the grocery store. It may add 15 minutes to your shopping trip, but it will add a lot more to the quality of your life. Processed foods are foods altered chemically with additives and should be avoided. A quick glance at many labels and you are likely to see such words and ingredients as “bleached,” “aluminum,” or “high fructose corn syrup.” When it comes to ingredients, if you can’t pronounce it, don’t eat it. Stick to fruits, vegetable, grass-fed animal protein, and whole grains. Obviously, we are obsessed with a certain green superfood; learn more about aloe vera juice benefits here.

High Fructose Corn Syrup
It’s hard to believe that in America the average consumption of high fructose corn syrup is 60 pounds per year, per person. From the time it came on the market in the 1970s, obesity rates have tripled, along with a whole host of health issues longer than we would care to read linked to poor diet, high caloric intake, and generally poor nutritional value. Is it a coincidence? Do your research and always read nutritional labels and ingredients. But if you’re going to read labels for just one ingredient, look for and avoid high fructose corn syrup. It is single handedly one of the worst ingredients that can go in food - it has virtually zero nutritional value.

Stress
Stress can affect your body, mind, and feelings, and even your behavior. Left unchecked, stress can can contribute to a whole host of health issues. Ways to relieve stress are within your grasp. Take a few minutes each day to write out the cause of what’s really stressing you and start to track it, which can help you eliminate it. Or just let it out—laugh, talk, cry with trusted friends or family. Learn to meditate, begin an exercise regimen, or take up a hobby.

Eliminating stress and adding whole, organic foods, like aloe vera can definitely helps support your physical health and wellbeing. What about your mental health? We hope that by eliminating some of this everyday negativity, you may feel more healthy across the board.

Clutter
Be it a room, your house, your yard or even your mind—whatever your space—it’s time to declutter. It’s been said, in many ways, clutter is a result of unbridled consumerism. Once basic needs are fulfilled—food, water, shelter, stability—people begin to accumulate things. Madison Avenue provides an endless market of consumer goods to capture your attention. Things we want are not necessarily things we need. The unfortunate side effect is soon our houses are overrun with things and our brains are overflowing with stuff we don’t really need. Break the habit. Less stuff means less to take care of, less chaos for the mind. Avoid impulse buys. Around the house, start with small manageable tasks. Toss junk mail when you get it. Hang up that coat when you take it off. Clean pots, pans, and dishes as you go.

Procrastination
“Putting it off is the new tomorrow.” A friend used to say that to me every time I looked in the mirror. I never liked what I saw but knowing that we all do it on some level seemed to make it right. Letting tasks, jobs, chores, assignments build up can steamroll into a great source of anxiety in your life. Take a moment and schedule what needs to be done. Write it down. Begin with one step at a time and soon enough you’ll routinely get where you need to be.

Constantly Checking Emails & Messages
Studies have shown that nearly a third of all U.S. employees’ reply to their personal emails within 15 minutes of receiving them. An additional 23 percent will reply within half an hour. Constantly checking email or text messages costs all of us lots of valuable time and the risk of injury—over 390,000 accidents are caused by distracted drivers annually. It is time to control it. Create a new habit of turning off your email program and notifications while at work, or driving. Come up with a system to check your new messages only twice a day. You'll save time and get much more done, and there will be less chance of a car accident.

Toxic People
You just shared a vision of where your life is going—goals, dreams, objectives—with a person you thought would support you and the first thing out of their mouth is, “It’ll never happen.” It’s time to move on. When you start to think about how much time is lost by the people in your life who make you feel bad, miserable, or who make your life more difficult, it adds up. Be it a supervisor, boss, coworker, or family member, it’s okay to cut them out of your life.

The Old Job
Which brings us to changing jobs—it can be as welcome as a change of scenery, however, it can also be very stressful. But the flipside is if you’re stressing out over work and work relationships—see toxic people—for your own mental health, it’s time to move forward. Create a vision. Write down what you want out of your work life, not only your salary, but what you hope to accomplish, and the kind of people you want to do it with.

Multitasking
In theory, having multiple tasks going on at the same time might seem like a good way to be productive, but in reality, it means your focus is distracted. It prevents us from actually focusing on a task and completing it. Become a single-tasker—write down a list of tasks and do them one at a time.

Your mental health has a direct effect on your physical and spiritual health too. By clearing the negativity in your life, as well as the junky processed foods you have the potential to start down your path to a healthy new you in the new year.