70: THE Mindset Shift for Successful Health Resolutions

At the beginning of a new year, you probably feel that familiar nudge. You know the one: the "New Year, New Me" excitement where you buy the fancy apps, the matching yoga pants, and print out a meal plan so organized it belongs in a museum. 

But let’s be real—by Valentine’s Day, those yoga pants are being dressed up for "casual office wear", and your motivation has completely evaporated.

I see you, and I get it. You are a smart, driven, high-achieving woman managing a career and a massive "invisible load" at home. But let's get honest about why your health resolutions have failed in the past. (Spoiler alert: It’s not because you lack willpower or discipline.)

The problem is a flawed strategy that doesn't account for the reality of who you are as a professional and busy mom in perimenopause or menopause.

In this episode I break down the six traps that keep midlife moms stuck in a cycle of frustration and self-blame. We’re moving past the "all-or-nothing" mentality, and taking advantage of my secret weapon: the Bare Minimum Plan. We talk about how to stop punishing yourself for holiday cookies and cocktails, and how to start rewiring your brain so healthy habits actually feel effortless.


In this episode:

✅ The Tool Trap: Why downloading fitness and nutrition apps won’t balance your hormones.

✅ The Planning Lie: How to tell if your color-coded Google Calendar is acutally your way of procrastinating.

✅ The Bare Minimum Plan: How to stay on track even when life goes off the rails.

✅ Rewiring Your Brain: Why a mindset framework is the missing link in every diet you’ve ever tried.

✅ Data vs. Drama: How to look at post-holiday weight gain without the guilt, shame, or punishment.

Links Mentioned and Ways To Connect:

The Perimenopause Weight Loss Method

🙋‍♀️ Work with Me
⭐️ Connect on Social
🥑 How I Cook Just 3 Nights/Week
🧠 Mindset Framework to Stop Relying On Willpower or Motivation

Transcript

Hello there, my friend, and welcome back to the Family Fork podcast. I, as always, am so glad you're here. And I know that if you are listening to this episode, like right as it airs, you're probably feeling a little bit of a nudge, like, okay, here we go again. I need to start thinking about my New Year's resolutions. Because let's be honest, for so many of us, January 1st, it just feels like a reset button.

it's our time to wipe the slate clean and to finally tackle those health and wellness goals that we kind of put on hold during the chaotic end of the year. And I see you, I know you. You're smart, you're driven, you're successful in your career, and you're deeply committed to your family. But you also run a household and you're juggling tons of work deadlines and different teams and somehow

you still find time to manage that giant invisible load that you carry. So here's the thing, when it comes to your health, you feel like you're stuck in this never ending cycle because every January you commit with so much enthusiasm, right? You get new apps or you new workout gear, new yoga pants, and you print out the perfect meal plans and you feel ready to go.

And then somewhere towards the end of January or early February, that excitement starts to fade and your motivation, it's gone. Your willpower, it's totally evaporated. And that just leaves you feeling frustrated and defeated and pretty much right back where you started. So does that sound familiar at all? If so, just know that you are not alone.

Truly in the majority, you're a high achieving, busy midlife mom who's navigating your life. And now you're navigating perimenopause or even menopause. And that in itself just changes everything because what worked for your health and your wellness in your 20s and your 30s, it doesn't work anymore. And the weight gain that we know it collects around the midsection, it is frustratingly real.

Your energy is low and your sleep is off. I know mine is. And honestly, you just feel like your body is working against you.

So today we're going to go very deep into exactly why that resolution cycle continues year after year. And honestly, this is not about blaming yourself.

It's actually about validating your experiences and showing you that it's not your willpower that's the problem. It's the strategy or lack of a strategy that forces this cycle to continue every single year.

Today, I wanna give you six very specific reasons why your health and wellness resolutions, especially for those of us who are navigating this stage of life, are unfortunately set up to fail. And once we uncover those six reasons, we're gonna get to the true secret weapon that changes all of it, which if you haven't guessed by now, it's your mindset.

because if you don't address your brain in the way that you think, all of the gym memberships and anti-inflammatory meal plans in the world, they're not gonna stick. We're gonna talk about how to stop relying on that finite, depleting resource called willpower and start rewiring your brain so that you can make your healthy habits feel effortless. This episode is about creating success that lasts

⁓ lifetime, not just until mid-February. So if this sounds good to you, I want you to grab a pen and paper and let's dig into the six reasons that your New Year's health resolutions fail and what you can do to flip that script starting today.

One of the biggest reasons that your New Year's health and wellness resolutions have failed you in the past is that you are only relying on tools without having built a sustainable strategy or a success mindset to back them up. Your brain really wants you to believe that you're going to be so much more in control of your health and your wellness, and you'll probably drop a couple of pounds if you just have the right

tools. Sound familiar? So what does this look like? So maybe you're gathering a ton of like apps and nutrition trackers. Maybe you found a cool new app that helps you track exactly what you're eating, you know, the calories and the macros, or maybe you've tried to find a way to work out at home. So you've downloaded a new Pilates app that's going to be really easy for you to use every day.

We all do this. We all get caught up in like shiny new object syndrome. You download a meal plan, you subscribe to an online workout library, or you grab even the latest like smartwatch that will help you to track your steps and your sleep or even one of those aura rings. And when you're downloading or you're purchasing these products and these apps, it gives your brain this little hit of dopamine. And it makes you think, whoa,

I am so prepared and on top of things, this is going to be my year. I finally have all the tools I need to make it happen.

You're feeling productive, you're excited, and it seems like you're doing something good and you're investing in your health. But the reality is that these tools on their own, they're not a strategy and they don't help your mindset either. They're actually just adding more things to your plate.

An app that tracks your macros, it doesn't actually tell you which anti-inflammatory foods to prioritize for your body in perimenopause and to help balance your hormones. That new Pilates app, it doesn't tell you when and how to fit that workout into a day that's already packed with team calls, running the kids to sports and dance practice, and juggling that invisible load of midlife.

It doesn't mean that just because you have an app to track your nutrition, that you know exactly how to make your anti-inflammatory eating a priority while also knowing how to cook for your family without spending extra time in the kitchen.

When we get to midlife, it's clear that you're not in your 20s anymore. We feel it every day, right? Your body's needs are different and your life schedule, it's demanding. So your strategy needs to be tailored to those hormonal shifts and the time constraints and the really immense pressure that you carry every day.

If you don't have a sustainable strategy built into your exact life, the way it looks today, those tools, they're just going to collect dust. It'll be digital dust if they're on your phone or physical dust if it's on new dumbbells that you bought. And when those tools don't magically work because you didn't have a strategy that fit your life, this is when it leads you to think, ⁓

I don't have any willpower. I have zero discipline. That must be why my New Year's resolution to like feel better and get healthy, it's failed again. You see what you do? You blame yourself when the reality is that you were actually using a flawed strategy. So the truth is that without a strategy and without a success mindset, all of those tools are useless.

stop gathering lots of apps and downloads, and let's shift our focus to the necessary strategy that's going to make your health effortless, not harder.

All right, so we talked about that trap of relying solely on tools.

So now let's look at the second common pitfall. It's that you stop yourself at the planning phase or the buying phase and you fail to actually implement anything that you've put in front of you. So your brain, it loves a good plan. I know mine does too. It's one of the ways that as high achieving women, we actually get a little hit of dopamine. So we feel accomplished just by thinking about doing something.

So you probably saw this happen right over the holidays, right? This is where like retail therapy kicked in. You started accumulating some things. You got some new workout gear, the new yoga pants on Black Friday. Maybe you even got some of those floor sliders or some resistance bands or maybe even like a set of dumbbells. So you had all of the right gear in front of you and you're like, yes, I am so committed.

You invested that money and the time and you can feel the momentum as we head into the new year. And then the planning starts. And it honestly feels so good to plan. Because what you do is you print out trackers for your workout program. So you can kind of track your progress over time. And then you go to your Google calendar and four mornings a week, you plan out your workout sessions.

and then you take your meal plan and you put together this like meticulous grocery list. And to even top yourself off, you put it all into Instacart so that it's really easy to like reorder your groceries every single week.

I hope this is resonating with you because this is what most women do. That planning, just makes you feel so good. It looks predictable, easy, and it just makes it look manageable. And you look at it, you're like, yes, I can accomplish this. I can do it. I have built the perfect plan.

but you like you knew you there was a but right here's the flaw in that planning that planning is often a form of procrastination. So we stop at the plan because our brain has already gotten the reward for building that plan and it doesn't want to fall into that risk of unpredictability and the discomfort of actually doing the hard work and we fail.

to plan for the real life of the real women that we are. You you planned to work out on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, but then one of your kids got sick or you had to do an unexpected work trip or the dog needed to go to the vet. These things happen in life, but they also throw a massive wrench in your very meticulous, beautifully built plan.

So here's the kicker. You haven't planned for disaster. You haven't accounted for those days, which they're going to come up when your plan gets derailed. and because your plan was built for perfection, when your schedule does go crazy, your brain's first instinct is to just say, my gosh, okay, I can't do it today. We're just gonna try again next Monday.

You won't truly know if your plan is sustainable until you stop planning and actually start implementing. It's time to stop making the plans and just start doing something today, no matter how messy it feels.

And that leads us right into the third reason why these resolutions fail apart so quickly, because it's all about not making a plan for those inevitable bad days. That feeling of the plan feeling apart, you get it, right? Like when things start to fall apart, what happens? You feel like a failure yet again. And this is where the majority of New Year's resolutions totally crash and burn.

You didn't plan for failure. You go into January and you have a plan that's built for perfection, assuming that everything will go according to the schedule and the way that you created it.

When you sit down to plan, you're factoring in the reality of your busy life. Kids get sick, work projects go crazy. You have an unexpected trip or maybe like I experienced this year, a major life shift happens. There are so many things that can throw a wrench into your perfect plan. And because your plan was built on the foundation of perfection, the moment something goes wrong,

Your brain likes to tell you, well, that plan is ruined. We missed Tuesday's workout. So this week is just wasted. I might as well just wait until next Monday. I'll start again. This is the torturous all or nothing mentality that keeps you stuck. You believe that you missed a single workout or had a bad meal and that that makes you a failure, which that causes you to give up entirely instead of

just instantly getting back on track. This all or nothing cycle is really just your brain's defense mechanism, trying to avoid anything that feels painful or uncomfortable, like that feeling of failure.

So here is the immediate solution you can put in place today. You need to build a plan that works on your very worst day. I like to call this the bare minimum plan. So instead of giving up altogether, you define the absolute non-negotiable, smallest, tiniest thing that you can do to support your health resolution, even when everything is falling apart.

So for instance, say you missed, you had planned for a 45 minute strength training workout and you missed it. So your bare minimum could be 10 body weight squats while your coffee brews or five minutes of gentle stretching before bed.

It's about just simply honoring that habit of movement, even if it's not the planned intensity that you had hoped for. Here's another example. If the week's dinner plan is absolutely impossible to execute because all of a sudden you have to take an unplanned trip, your bare minimum could be grabbing some grilled chicken, a clean protein shake, and a handful of almonds as your meal replacement.

Think of it as like an anti-inflammatory emergency plan. So why is this mindset shift so important? Because it actually reframes your actions. A single healthy meal or a 15 minute walk is a win, not a loss. And it's these small victories that are going to build that long-term momentum.

when you recognize that you can still show up for your goals, even on your hardest days, you instantly train your brain to choose progress over perfection. So this mindset of accepting good enough is the only thing that's going to build the longevity that you are truly looking for.

And speaking of mindset, this honestly is where most women, especially my clients and students who are those high achievers, you run into the most subtle yet destructive obstacle, which is the self-talk that you have going on in your head all the time. This is where we get into the really deep work. The part that often surprises the women that I work with because it actually has nothing to do with food or fitness.

and it has everything to do with your brain.

So the fourth reason that those health and wellness resolutions often fail is because you let yourself lean into those thoughts that simply do not serve your future self.

you have done the work to build a very successful career. I see you, I get it. You are driven and achievement oriented and you like to believe that you have a positive outlook. You're probably listening to this and thinking, know, Ashley, I do have a positive mindset. I'm actually excited to get started on my resolutions. But even with that kind of enthusiasm, there are always these underlying.

like quiet little stories that are playing in your brain constantly. So tell me if any of these ring a bell for you. Well, you know, I tried this like 30 day program before and it never really worked for me, but I'm going to try it again, but I doubt it will work this time.

or I'm in perimenopause, I get it, and my body is literally just falling apart. It seems like anything I try doesn't really help me. I know I need to eat healthy, but my family, they're never gonna eat that. So what is the point of even trying these new recipes? Or maybe you've said, you know what, I'm just too stressed out, I'm too busy, I don't even know where to start to figure out how to take control of my health.

When you think these thoughts, it's not going to work for me or it's too hard or what's the point? Unfortunately, that's the reality that you're building. Your brain is constantly looking for the confirmation of what it believes. So if you really believe nothing is going to work, your brain will subconsciously ensure that it doesn't work. So even though you're not getting the outcome that you wish for,

If you think it's not going to work and it doesn't, your brain actually sees that as a predictable outcome, which helps your brain to feel really safe. So it's going to keep replaying that story in your head. Isn't that crazy? If you want to succeed, it is so important to create thoughts that lead you to success, even when your plan gets derailed or even when those recipes are a flop.

And that leads us to number five. You don't have a framework for rewiring your brain. So you just try and fake it instead. You probably believe, and I know I did for a long time, that you can just sort of fake it till you make it. You'll just say, yeah, you know what? I'll figure it out. Or, yep, I know this plan will work for me, even though you don't totally believe it. Or maybe you say, you know what? It's fine. This week was a mess. I'll start again next week.

are relying on sheer willpower and positive affirmations, but you're missing a solid repeatable system.

I know you are smart and capable and you can figure it out. But here's the deal. Nobody has ever actually taught you how to change your thinking. You have really never been taught how to manage your brain. And this is why traditional weight loss or health strategies, they fail us. They give us the tools.

We may have the tools and the strategy, but we've completely skipped over the mindset framework that determines whether or not those tools get used consistently. Rewiring your brain to have these more productive thoughts. This is exactly what I teach women in the perimenopause weight loss method. It's such a structured approach. And it all starts with learning how to notice those unhelpful, sometimes like

subconscious thoughts that you're having.

for example, when you wanna quit or you don't wanna work out, you want to notice what thought you're having. You're probably saying, I don't have enough time. So if you believe I don't have enough time, your brain actually turns off your creative problem solving. And in the end, you'll never find time to work out. And if you don't work out, you don't get stronger muscles, you don't take control of your health.

and you don't actually hit your resolutions. But once you notice yourself thinking, I don't have enough time, you can actually start training yourself to rewire the thoughts that come to you automatically by replacing the story that stops you with a different story that moves you forward. Something like, I know I'm running late, but I am going to do some kind of movement for just five minutes.

Learning to adjust your mindset is the ultimate secret sauce for lasting weight loss and health and consistency. And until you get your brain on board, all of the other tools and strategies, they just will never work for you.

Okay, finally, the sixth reason that your resolutions fail is that you start the new year with the wrong kind of motivation. So I see this pattern every year. You get through the holiday season and you have indulged, you've enjoyed the sweets and the treats, the cocktails, the parties, all of the like rich, delicious foods, and you have spent your holiday season enjoying all of that.

but now you probably feel a little sluggish and bloated and maybe heavier than you like. And with those physical feelings often come a lot of emotions like guilt, embarrassment, shame for eating too much or drinking too much, and just feeling frustrated that you went overboard.

So when January 1st rolls around, you build that health and wellness plan out of this negative emotion. Essentially, it's like you're trying to punish yourself for the choices that you made over the holidays. Seriously, I hear this all the time. Women will say, ⁓ I just totally let myself go. And they feel guilty because they ate too many, whatever that is, Hershey's kisses or cookies or indulged in way too many cocktails. So.

your resolutions become this form of like self-inflicted punishment. You choose a restrictive diet or a really hard workout program because you in the back of your mind, you're like, I have to make up for all of the damage that I did over the holidays. Building your resolutions out of guilt, shame or punishment is utterly unsustainable. That punishment based plan is gonna feel like work.

like a chore and your brain is literally wired to resist anything that feels painful or uncomfortable. It's also going to drain any willpower that you do have almost immediately and it's going to lead you right into that cycle of giving up yet again.

When you build with the wrong motivation, you're not actually building for longevity. You are not giving yourself grace for the season that we were in during the holidays.

The biggest mindset shift that you can make here is to review your post-holiday body and habits and just see them as data, not failure.

Data, it's not good, it's not bad, it just is. So you can say, gained six pounds over the holidays. That's just data. Then you can train your brain to move forward with grace and compassion and smarter choices instead of using that guilt to fuel a painful restrictive plan.

your New Year's resolutions must be rooted in your future self. The you that's vibrant and energetic and confident. You have to make your resolutions with that woman in mind. You need to create a mindset that allows you to actually appreciate who you were during the holiday season and then just use that information as a springboard for positive action. So now

or in the new year, you can choose that savory, high protein breakfast bowl because you want to feel focused for your 9 a.m. and to be present for your family tonight, not because you're trying to make up for what you ate over the holidays or what you had for dessert last night.

By shifting your motivation from punishment to empowerment, you give your brain permission to actually embrace that hard work of consistency. OK, so let's pull all of these reasons together and talk about how you can actually start transforming your results in your brain today.

And let's start with a quick recap of those six reasons why those New Year's resolutions seem to fail year after year. So number one, the tool trap. You are just relying on those apps and those tools without a tailored strategy that fits your actual real life life. Number two, the planning lie. You kind of stop at planning and buying because

that's giving you the dopamine hit, but you fail to actually implement even if it looks like messy action. Number three, you have no plan for failure. You have this all or nothing mindset and you give up the moment life feels really challenging. Number four, that sabotaging self-talk. You let those quiet unhelpful stories like I'm too busy or it'll never work for me.

you let those determine your results. Number five, you're missing the framework. You don't have a concrete step-by-step system for actually rewiring your brain and replacing those unhelpful stories. And number six, the wrong motivation. You're building your resolutions out of guilt or shame, which is definitely a recipe for quick burnout.

So if you're nodding along right now, you just have to know that the common thread through all of these six points, it is not your lack of effort or your lack of discipline, okay? I know you already are disciplined.

I can see how it shows up in every area of your life. The reality is that the common thread here is that missing mindset strategy. It's not, the solution is not another meal plan, another book about dieting or another gym membership or another pair of yoga pants. The key is shifting your approach from what diet should I try this January? And instead thinking, how can I rewire my brain?

to make these anti-inflammatory habits effortless and consistent for the rest of my life. That's a totally different way of thinking. You need a new operating system for your brain.

You need a way to manage your thoughts and your emotions and to know how that you can actually manage that chaos in midlife so that your plan sticks even when things go off the rails. This is exactly what I teach inside of the perimenopause weight loss method. It's this full package for you. I combine a mindset framework to overcome those negative and unhelpful stories that your brain comes up with.

and I pair that with simple anti-inflammatory nutrition strategy that is designed for you and the demands of your life and what your body needs in perimenopause and your busy schedule. I teach you how to build a plan for your best day and your worst day so that you can walk away from that all or nothing mentality forever.

So if you're tired of being stuck in this resolution cycle, if you're tired of relying on willpower or thinking that you need to have more discipline, and if you're finally ready to hit those resolutions and keep habits for a lifetime, it's honestly time to stop DIYing your health. So the solution's waiting for you. I want you to check out the link in the show notes to learn more about the method.

it's time to take that first step towards creating lasting change in the new year. And whether or not the method is right for you, you have homework right now. I want you to pick just one of the six reasons that we talked about today, something that resonated with you the most. And this week, focus on a micro shift. So if you identified with the fact that you just like to plan a bunch, I actually want you to stop planning

and implement one small thing today.

If you resonated with having the wrong motivation around how you create your resolutions, then I want you to reframe your choices from a place of love and future you and future health instead of guilt. So do that homework today and see where it takes you.

Okay, that is all for today, my friend. Thank you so much for joining me for this episode today, and I can't wait to see you next week.