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My grandad and grandma were both smokers. When they were about my age, Grandad said he was quitting. In the many decades that have passed since then, he hasn't touched a single cigarette. That's just the way he is, my grandad.

When my grandma saw that, she said she'd stop smoking too. And from then on... she smoked in secret. She smoked everywhere but in front of Grandad. She was too embarrassed that she hadn't managed it like him. Occasionally she smoked even when he was around and declared it a minor relapse. After that, she switched back to secret mode and smoked in the cellar. That's just the way she is, my grandma.

Only 20% of us are blessed with strong willpower

Science claims that 20% of us are endowed with strong willpower. My grandad is definitely one of them. 60% of us have to make do with average willpower and the remaining 20% have below-average willpower. Congratulations, if you belong to the top 20%, be happy about it and be patient with us, the remaining 80%. We're only human and let's be honest - most of our good intentions come to a bad end.

That's why you need every ally you can get when following through with your resolutions. The most important ally is your brain. I'll explain how it works and how you can get it to support you in a moment.

Quitting smoking, exercising regularly, eating healthily or losing weight requires strong motivation. As a former smoker, I know what I'm talking about. Is it enough that it's "New Year's Eve" to be so highly motivated? I think people like my grandad can do it. They take their own decision seriously and, in theory, it's enough for them if it's Valentine's Day, the Three Wise Men or simply Sunday. I think very few people are like my grandad. Most of us are more like my grandma. Normally gifted when it comes to the power of their own decisions.

You should be aware of this when making resolutions. It is very helpful to understand how your brain works. Only then can you use it properly to achieve your goals.

These 3 ways will help you keep your resolutions:

1. connection to feeling

A specific area of the brain is responsible for making resolutions, namely the cerebral cortex. Resolution made, done. However, in order for it to be successfully implemented, the cerebral cortex must build a bridge to other areas of the brain, for example to the area responsible for emotions or the area responsible for making plans.

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At this point I would like to point out once again that untreated hypofunction damages the blood vessels to an extent that not even smoking does. No, you haven't misheard me. While smokers have a 2x higher risk of vascular ageing and fatal heart attacks, people with untreated hypofunction have a 2.5x higher risk than a healthy person.

Recognising hypofunction

As the doctor often does not detect hypothyroidism straight away, as already mentioned, doctors Rüdiger and Simone Homm recommend looking out for the following symptoms in their book "Handbuch Anti-Aging und Prävention". If two or more of these are present, this indicates that hypothyroidism is almost certainly present:

• In the morning, before getting up, take the temperature in the crook of your arm - the value is below 36.6° (I have clients who measure values close to 35°!)

• Slowed muscle reflex relaxation time (e.g. with Achilles tendon reflex)

• Puffy face

• Slowed movements

• Deteriorated hearing

The thyroid gland and the unfulfilled desire to have children

Finally, I would like to mention that unrecognised thyroid problems can significantly affect fertility. It is therefore advisable to consult a thyroid specialist if you have an unfulfilled desire to have children and the cause is unknown. Around 25% of women with fertility problems have a thyroid dysfunction, primarily hypothyroidism. That's worth mentioning.

This topic has been close to my heart for a long time, as untreated women simply really struggle. They can starve themselves and still put on weight, they can't get out of bed, that's not quality of life.

Don't always rely on the doctor, feel inside, look for clues, You are responsible for your body. The thyroid gland is very important, it is our power centre. If you suspect that you might have a thyroid disorder, don't give up after the first negative test. It's better to see a specialist who also looks for symptoms and is more open-minded.

Why, why, why - and what can be done?

But I think it's just as important to know the reasons that lead to thyroid problems. Prevention is important. So next week I'll be writing about how you can strengthen your thyroid and what other foods and supplements besides iodine are important for your thyroid. Make sure my article reaches you!

I have already written two articles on the subject of hormones:

If this one thing doesn't fit, everything is out of balance

The video "Bioidentical hormones" - Interview with Dr Plakolm

Our feelings cause us to fail more often than we realise. Feelings simply cannot stand to be ignored. We have to learn to ask ourselves the right questions. "How much do I want to weigh?" helps me to find a number, to set a goal. Let's say 58 kilos. Now I have this number in front of me, while most of the time during the weight loss process I will struggle with what? That's right. With my feelings. I recommend you ask yourself the following questions instead:

1.1 How do I want to feel?

This question will bring you closer to your motivation and may help you to discover your own thinking errors. Do you want to lose weight because you want to feel like yourself? Attractive, light, agile, young, healthy, sporty, powerful, dynamic,.... Your true motivation is a feeling that you desire. This motivation, this feeling is your guiding star that helps you to make better decisions. The road to your goal is long and full of opportunities to make the wrong decision. Keep this feeling in mind, it will help you to keep going.

But not only that. It also helps you to recognise in which direction you would like to steer your life. If your weight makes you feel heavy and you want to lose weight in order to feel light and/or dynamic again, the question arises as to what else you could do to get closer to this feeling. Perhaps there is someone around you who also makes you feel heavy. Someone who looks for the negative everywhere, constantly complains and whinges in your ears? You shouldn't waste your energy on someone like that. On the other hand, maybe there is someone else who you should seek out more often because you always feel so inspired, optimistic, light and dynamic afterwards? How do you consume media? Do you watch things that give you the feeling you want?

Being aware of the feeling you hope to get from achieving your resolution brings a lot of clarity and motivation into your life. Another way to ask yourself this question is:

1.2 What kind of woman do I want to be?

This question stimulates the visual approach and we need images if we want to achieve our goals. Without realising it, you already have images in your head that you emulate. These are images of women who have moulded you - your mother, your teacher, your older sister. Now it's time to create your own images.

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This question comes from the successful designer Diane von Fürstenberg. She said that when she was young she didn't know what she wanted, but she knew what kind of woman she wanted to be and that has always guided her. I think this approach is great. And again, this picture reveals more secrets about your desires. Because I'm willing to bet losing weight won't be the only thing you can do to become the kind of woman you want to be. It might also involve changing the way you dress - which could further motivate you to lose weight. Maybe you'll come up with the idea of taking up a certain hobby that will bring you closer to this image.

2. small steps

I am a friend of small steps. The power of small steps is criminally underestimated, while the power of big steps is inflated to almost mystical proportions. I also know this because I am such a permanent optimiser and am therefore always in the process of implementing some kind of "healthy concept". "From today onwards, I won't eat any sugar" - 99% of us simply can't stick to such a decision in the long term. You can accept that or be angry with yourself for it. It looks like this: you eat sweets again and feel bad about it.

Or you can be nice to yourself and resolve not to eat sugar 3 days a week. Dear 1%, be so kind and don't send me any emails. I'm happy for you that you can do it. We 99% just don't feel like hiding in the cellar with our sweets like my grandma does from our own conscience.

My former geography teacher was an ex-smoker. He told us that he always allowed himself to buy a packet of cigarettes on New Year's Eve and really enjoy them. This little story later secured my life as a non-smoker. Because I do the same and think it's brilliant.

In this way, I can finally manage dinner cancelling. Deeply convinced of its health effects, I tried to implement it for a long time. It wasn't until I said, okay, three times a week is enough, that I actually managed to do it every week, and usually even five times. The pressure is gone. Small steps are simply magical. Health is a long-term project, so you need staying power.

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If you want to lose weight from a size 44 to a size 38, you would be well advised to set yourself the goal of a size 42 first. It is easier to achieve, brings great joy and it is advisable to ask yourself "what do I have to do to maintain this weight?" Once you have stabilised here, once size 42 has become your new normal weight, you can set your sights on size 40. Small steps allow us to train the skills we need to maintain our success in the long term.

I think you need strong motivation to make a big change. New Year's Eve is enough for small steps. If you don't eat sweets three days a week, you have almost halved your sugar consumption. That doesn't make much difference in a month. But small steps simply last longer. This gives them the chance to become a real habit. If you look at your sugar consumption over ten years and imagine you only ate half as much, that's a lot!

I asked an expert about this - my husband. I have known him for 20 years and for 20 years he has been practising dinner cancelling, sport and a healthy lifestyle in general, while he is actually quite a hedonist. I think his attitude of combining indulgence and discipline is great. He says: "Only renunciation makes enjoyment possible. A long-term plan can never be realised 1:1. It's important not to be too strict about it. Because if you do it strictly and don't manage it once or twice, you immediately feel like you're failing and then you don't do it at all. Life is guaranteed to make you fail again and again, so that shouldn't be a reason to give up. Do it as often as you can. That's what it's all about. It's never about consistent perfection without any gaps, that kind of thing can't work in the long term. Just do it again and again, as often as you can. Then it becomes a habit and when it has become a habit, realising it is no longer a problem at all. The organism adapts over time and then it becomes the new you."

3. a beginning can also be the goal

Taekwondo, tennis, drumming, all sorts of things I started with good intentions. I once started designing and sewing fantasy plush toys with the romantic intention of one day having a stall at the Christmas market and spending the whole day chatting to nice market visitors with a cup of hot tea. My husband and I once expanded our garden with the intention of becoming self-sufficient. I can't even think of all the projects I've started over the years with serious intentions. I have lots of ideas and a lot of enthusiasm. Most of the projects came to nothing. A few have turned into quite a lot - this blog, for example. Incidentally, I started a blog four years ago but didn't keep it up. This time it worked out. The failure back then was important, because only then did I realise what it would take to pull it off successfully. After all, I knew what I had failed at.

Neil Strauss said: "What we see as the end points of a destination are really just forks in a road that forks further and further. In the big picture of our lives, we cannot know whether a particular success or failure is actually helping or hurting us."

The many new beginnings in my life have given me a lot of interesting experiences. They have helped me to experience myself in different situations and get to know myself better. They have helped me to get to know the world. Thanks to the many new beginnings, I now know how such a process works for me, I know the point when I realise that the game is slowly becoming serious and I want to invest more here. I have attended a lot of courses and most of them were for nothing. But the few that have enriched me have enriched me in a way that has completely changed my life. It's a bit like kissing frogs. You never know which one will turn into a prince.

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Enrichment can also happen indirectly. By finding out what you don't want, it indirectly leads to clarity about what you really really want. "Tell me, what you want, what you really really want", sang the Spice Girls. Victoria Beckham was one of them. She only found what she really really wants after her singing career. Today, she is a passionate designer who talks in every interview about how she loved fashion from an early age and how overjoyed she is to be where she is today. But without her first career, she would not have the same standing as a designer. You should always dare to start something again, without the pretence that it has to be the big thing now. You just never know.

"And there is a magic in every beginning that protects us and helps us to live." There are good reasons why Hermann Hesse's quote is so famous - it simply makes sense. A new beginning, that is hope, that is sensing the possibility that I could be more than I am today. A new beginning, a resolution, is reaching for the possibility of how my life could be. What a failed resolution can lead to in the future is impossible to judge today.

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And it is precisely according to these principles that I have written both my book and my course "Chi instead of Botox" - the way to fight unnecessary wrinkles with dignity and health. To be able to mature in peace and feel good, that was my image of the woman I wanted to be after my 40th birthday. Not a victim of my fears and not a victim of the beauty industry. "Chi instead of Botox" helps to achieve great results with little effort and can therefore be realised in the long term. I have written this article in such detail because it is very important to understand how improvements can be integrated into everyday life in the long term. I am very happy about this Amazon review: