It's 2025 outside. Time for new goals!

Have you made goals for the new year?   You’ve heard of Robert F. Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA)?  I love that for a goal. We could stand to be a bit healthier. did you know the US is the most disease ridden and shortest life expectancy of any developed nation? Yet, we spend at least twice as much money and we are making ourselves sicker.

We all have financial, relationship, educational, spiritual and health goals.  Whether we vocalize them or write them down or not, we have all thought “what if….?”  “I’d love to be ______”.  “I would like to have ______ in my life.”  “I would like to hike the Grand Canyon.”  Etc…    Those are goals. 

Of all the categories of goals, the one with the most impact is health.  If you are not healthy, the other goals become difficult or impossible to achieve.  You’re not going to get your dream job if you are missing work because you are unhealthy.   You aren’t going to be able to hike the Grand Canyon if you are unhealthy.  Heck, there are people who've lost everything because their health is so bad, dealing with it consumes all resources of time, energy and money. They're not thinking about a hike or a trip to the beach.  So, the best bang for your buck goal work is going to be in the health department.  

People who are successful at reaching their goals, more often than not, write them down and make plans for the steps to get there.  I’m not saying you need to write down your ideal weight or perfect job.  But, if it’s in your head everyday and you speak it, that’s going to work.  Writing it down helps with top of mind consciousness of the goal. 

You don’t have a health goal?   That’s common.  Nobody thinks about it until they’ve lost their health.   With that foundation, here’s some tips on how to identify health goals.  No matter what stage of health or disease you are in, your main goal is to correct the situation that gets in the way of you doing the things you MUST do, like going to work, caring for kids or grandchildren.  Those are MUST do things.   If you are having difficulty with those, you get headaches or stresses you out so much you get sick, that’s what you need to focus on for 2025.  Example Goal: Not missing work or cancelling plans in 2026.

The next lower level of concern are things that you’d like to do but you can’t or it causes you discomfort.  Some of these things you already no longer do because of this and you’ve forgotten why you don’t do them anymore.  Like play tennis, skate, waterski, run…  you know, the things you used to do for fun.  This is a lesser problem lifewise, but no less of an impact on your overall health.  Example Goal: Get back to biking this summer

This situation’s goal is to get back to these fun things that you did when you were younger. 

The other category is future casting your vision of where you’ll be and what you’ll be doing 10 or 20 years from now.  People are quite surprised by how quickly disability sneaks up on them when they’re 65.  Often people have problems that prevent them from enjoying all of life even before they reach that age range.   So, if you’re 25 and reading this, look around you and observe what the older generation in your family is doing for fun.  Are they healthy?  Or, are they on medications, seeing doctors and unable to watch grandkids or go on a hike, or walk the beach?  Consider that if they are family, unless you do something different, you’ve learned all the steps in eating, exercising and caring for your health that will produce exactly what you are seeing with your older family members.   In other words, if you do what they did, you are going to get what they got. 

You’re not going to escape.  It’s not going to be better when you get that age.  In fact, it will be worse.  The food supply is much worse now.  Your older relatives who are sick and disabled, ate better than you are eating.  Not because they went out of their way, but the food supply wasn’t as bad 40 years ago as it is now.  Remember the lines at the fast food drive through during the pandemic?

If you are thinking that you want to recover your abilities and health or want to prevent being disabled and sick, you are not going to find the help you need in any medical setting.  Medical care is for crisis management.  Very good if you break a bone or your health has gotten so out of control you have high blood pressure or diabetes.   Those are medical situations and may require medical care to address the effects of the health problem to prevent further problems.   However, there’s no drug you can take to get healthy.  Drugs are necessary for crisis management.  If they were good for you, we would all be taking all the drugs.  More drugs would be better.  They are not capable of making you healthy again.

Health comes from the inside.  Health is your body adapting to whatever the conditions are.   If you are hiking, your body needs to do that for you.  You might be sore if you haven’t done it in awhile, but if you do it again in a couple days, you will be less sore.  That’s healthy.

 If you are exposed to a coronavirus, your body needs to adapt to that too. You may get a fever and cough a bit.  That’s healthy. 

If you eat rotten guacamole (I’ve done this) your body should recognize it’s rotten and make you throw up.  That’s healthy. 

Your body does all this stuff for you without you having to think about it.  It’s amazing.  It uses the nervous system to do all of it.  If there’s one thing you can do to get the most health out of your life, it’s keeping your nerves working properly.   Yes, you must eat right.  You must exercise too.   But, if your nerves are working properly (and many don’t know if they are or aren’t), it won’t matter that you are eating $20 per pound grass fed steak.  Or, that you have a $100 per hour personal trainer or dietician.  Nothing matters until you nerves are working right.  You can do those things.  You SHOULD do those things.  But, getting checked for nerve interference should be number one. 

Let’s make 2025 the MAHA year !  Make sure your family is getting adjusted regularly.