Have you ever had that sudden burst of inspiration, where you are suddenly declaring ‘right that is it tomorrow I am going to get back on track with my eating, and I’m going to exercise every day and I am going to get really organised and I am going to declutter this house and I am going to go to bed earlier and I am going to do this and I am going to do that!’
You feel really motivated, you are fed up of feeling like crap and you are fed up of feeling like you are living the same day over and over again – it is time to make your life how you want it to be.
And yet somehow, the next evening you feel EXACTLY the same again, and swear the next day is going to be THE day you actually start.
Sound familiar?
If it does, you are not alone.
The issue with this sort of burst of motivation, is that it has usually come from a negative place. Maybe seeing yourself in the mirror before going in the shower. Maybe you have had the most stressful day and you know that if you were a bit more organised this wouldn’t have happened. Maybe your bank has gone into overdraft yet again and you have got to sort this out. The house upside down again.
Seriously, what is wrong with you?!
Again, you are not alone with this and there is nothing wrong with you!
The issue with wanting to change things in our life is that they need to come from a place of self-care and self-love.
It’s almost impossible to hate something into changing. It might be the thing that kicks off that motivation but it won’t sustain you.
Think about eating well as an example. Imagine you hired a coach and every time you eat something ‘unhealthy’ they shouted at you, told you how worthless you are, how little willpower you have, told you you were a lost cause. It might get you back on track for a bit, but ultimately it’s going to make you feel sad and want comfort FROM food rather than wanting to eat well.
Then imagine a second ‘coach’ who is calm and gentle, and when you eat those foods that may be seen as being off plan tells you that it’s okay, just get back on track with your next meal. A ‘coach’ who guides you gently back to working on your goals and taking care of yourself in the process.
You are going to get completely different results with those two ‘coaches’ – those two ‘coaches’ are actually the voice you use to talk to yourself with – so be kind to yourself if you want change!
Finding the why
One thing we tend to do as well is not actually know what we want and have a strong reason for why behind it. The thing that will keep us going when we feel like quitting or struggling with choices.
Our why is important because it makes sure we are on the right track for achieving our goals.
Sometimes we might think that a certain thing is our goal, but once we dive deeper and figure out what our why is, we might realise that we are putting effort into the wrong area for reaching that goal.
I will use myself as an example here.
I had set myself the goal of I wanted to get more toned and yet every night when I looked at myself in the mirror before going in to the shower my body looks exactly the same. The wobbly bits that annoy me are still wobbly bits. My weight hasn’t changed.
So I got frustrated and decided that unless I lose weight, I’m not going to look toned anyway – so my focus shifted away from looking toned and moved onto weight loss.
(Now I am not anti-weight loss – but I am anti-diet. I am also trained in all this so I should know better than to do what I write about below – but we are all human! )
This shift made me feel a million times worse. I was stressing about my food choices and trying to limit certain foods and then feeling out of control around them. I actually gained a bit of weight. I felt about a hundred times worse every time I looked at myself in the mirror and could feel my self-confidence plummet. Exercise stopped being enjoyable and started feeling like a chore.
So it was time to re-assess my why.
My goal is to get toned, but my why behind it is so that I am strong – and that I am strong enough to keep carrying our daughter and lifting her when we go for days out and there are no hoists etc available or to lift her so she can join in with things.
That is my why.
But focusing on weight loss moved me away from my why, that is why I couldn’t get results and why everything felt wrong – so now I have shifted my goal back to my why I am back on track again. I’ve lost that excess weight I put on when I changed the goal, I feel in control around food again and exercise feels good again. It makes me feel I am one step closer to my goal each time I work out and it makes me feel good.
Losing weight wouldn’t help me to lift my daughter – it would just mean I was exactly the same strength wise but in a stronger body.
Your why is important.
The next step
So, we know we are ready to change.
We know that we need a strong why behind the goals we are setting in whatever area we are trying to make some changes in.
So it makes sense that the next step is to work out exactly what it is that we actually want to change.
While you may be thinking, I know exactly what it is I want to change, or maybe you are thinking I just need to change absolutely everything, I still suggest you do this next exercise because it will help you to get clear on what areas actually DO need changing (you are probably doing a lot better than you think!) and if there is more than one which area it is going to make the most difference to your life to start with.
You may have seen this exercise before, it might be something you have even done before, but I suggest you do it every year – and extra times any time you just feel like your life just doesn’t feel quite right.
Let’s do this.
The life edit
Click here to get your own free copy to fill in.
This idea is based on the wheel of life, that you may have seen before.
The idea behind it is that you divide your life into different areas, we all have similar areas.
For example, home, work, family, personal development, health, fitness, self-care etc etc
Then for each one you give it a score for how well you feel that you are doing in that area.
We score each area out of 10.
So for example, let’s use the example of eating well.
On a scale of 1 – 10, how well do you think you are doing with eating well on the whole? Are you eating balanced meals? What is your relationship with food? Let’s say you are doing about a 7. You feel like on the whole you eat well, but there is still some room for improvement and you would like to do better here.
Then we could look at your marriage. What is that like? Are you making time to have screen free talking time? When was your last date night? Are you making time for your marriage? Again, score that out of ten.
And so on and so forth.
While we typically have the same sorts of areas, you might have some different areas so write them in too.
Chose what works for you.
Areas you might have:
- Home
- Family
- Marriage
- Mother
- Work
- Faith
- Education
- Personal development
- Friendship
- Finances
- Health
- Eating well
- Fitness
- Fun
- Spiritual
For each of these areas score them out of 10.
Where 1 is you are putting zero effort in and that area of your life is not looking very good and 10 is you are putting maximum effort into this area and you are thriving here.
What is next after you have your scores
After you have scored each area, the next step is to to look at them all.
What areas stand out that they are doing really well?
What areas REALLY need more attention.
Get curious here, why do those areas need more attention? Why aren’t you putting in effort here? What can do you differently? Is this area just not a priority for you right now?
Make a plan
Once you know what areas need more focus, make a plan for them.
How can you improve in those areas?
Choose one area to start with
As tempting as it might be to go all in and try and fix all the areas at once… just choose one.
Choose one area to focus on right now and then once you feel that area has been improved on, it is time to move on to the next.
Remember to review!
Don’t just do this exercise and forget about it, make a point of setting a date to review it in a month or two once you have started making changes to make sure you are on the right track.
What area are you starting with?
Beth x
