The important first step to integrating wellness into your busy life (+ FREE download)
“We had a really crazy week with finishing up the school year with the 4 kids, a baseball tournament, the holiday weekend, and my husband's birthday. It really rocked my progress. Not only was I not logging, I had a lot of trouble staying on track. This is what I consistently see happen when I start trying to take care of myself. A crazy week comes up and I derail.”
Does this message sound familiar?
Let me start off by saying that, although this is the leading pain point for the majority of us, it's a great problem to have.
Why? Because it’s not unique to you.
Before I get into a practice that'll help you identify where you can start making adjustments, here are some of the main reasons that interfere with the prioritization of health:
1. Time management
Time is tricky. If we're not careful with it, we can focus too much on other activities over health-related ones. This can look like:
Focusing too much on things that don’t matter which are affecting your mindset (e.g, inability to make a decision, making sure you’re timing everything out, waiting for the "right" moment, etc.)
A tendency to focus on immediate needs and gratification over long-term well-being
Simply poor time management skills
2. Perceived barriers
There are various things we perceive as barriers to engaging in healthy behaviors and some of these barriers can look like:
Erratic work schedule
Busyness with kids
Financial constraints (e.g., thinking that eating healthy is expensive or that gym memberships are unaffordable or thinking that we need one at all)
Social influence (experiencing fear, guilt, shame that comes with healing and/or being heavily distracted by other's nutrition and/or lifestyle behaviors)
Feeling overwhelmed by the prospect of making significant lifestyle changes
3. Comfort creep
I read about comfort creep from author, Michael Easter and, in his book, he explains the concept of the “comfort crisis” and how it can keep us from the experiencing the difficult feelings that always come with change - even if it's for the better.
That, instead of embracing challenges and discomfort, we're impatient and immediately go for ease and convenience. "We're becoming more complacent."
As convenience increases, we do an amazing job of convincing ourselves that we have problems holding us back from prioritizing health, when really it's just not wanting to experience the discomfort of change.
So, how can you work on these shifting these narratives and start implementing wellness into your busy life?
The most successful thing you can do is, prioritize time to plan on how to slowly integrate wellness as a valued part of your lifestyle.
How to do it:
Grab some coffee or tea, light a candle or diffuse a relaxing oil
Sit down and put a timer on for 20-30 minutes
Pull up the “Barriers & Progress” form
Here are a couple of examples:
➡️ If I encounter - not having time to start my day with protein and a healthy fat before work, then end up eating something quick and calorie-dense:
💡 First I will: take 5-10 minutes to research some blood-sugar friendly breakfast recipes
✅ Then I will: prep my first meal of the day the night before
➡️ If I encounter multiple commutes making going to the gym difficult due to time:
💡 First I will: take 5-10 minutes to think about how I can implement movement throughout the day
✅ Then I will: exercise first thing in the morning or break up my workouts in small increments throughout the day
I encourage you to really utilize this practice to start inviting awareness around understanding the cause-and-effect of specific circumstances and routines. Then continuously work on creating plans that work for your lifestyle to reduce the friction around them.
The more you implement this practice, the easier it becomes.
Whenever you're ready, here are a couple ways I can help you with your wellness journey:
1. Take the Resilience Assessment
I formulated this assessment to gauge how optimal your wellness is at the moment and bring awareness around growth opportunities you can begin leaning into.
2. A free Clarity Call
If you're unsure what the best option is for you at the moment, schedule your call here.
3. The Essential Reset
4 weeks to a simple & sustainable reset. Sign up here 🔑
Talk, soon 🤍
