As this is the time of year when most people start thinking about their health and wellbeing, usually with a view to releasing weight, I wanted to give you a steer in the right direction as to how to approach improving your health and wellbeing.
As you know, I often write about self-love, loving your body and being good to yourself and your body … That’s the basis of my coaching and it’s the lens I want you to look through when you do anything in life, especially with regards to your health and wellbeing.
However, I also completely appreciate that can be tricky to do this – to truly embody loving all parts of yourself – when you’re not happy with your current reality.
I was listening to a podcast this week for entrepreneurs, and there was an episode called ‘Impact over income – the secret sauce to building a successful business’ where a guy called Bob Heilig was talking about his entrepreneurial journey and how he went from barely making any money to making over a million dollars within 7months.
He explained that for many years he’d been obsessed with wanting to make the million-dollar mile stone, but for years he just never seemed to get anywhere close to it. He was very upfront about the fact that, yes, he hit the million-dollar mark within the space of 7months which sounds amazing and it is, but the truth was that prior to that 7-month period he was working on his business for 10 years struggling to make ends meet.
It all changed, however, when he shifted his perspective on two things…
Firstly, he realized that he had this belief that, the more money you make the more it’s going to require of you – the more time and effort and hard work will be involved.
Secondly, he shifted his attention from ‘success’ (i.e. making the monetary success he wanted of $1M) to service. Or, as the title of the show says, he concerned himself with ‘impact over income’.
The moment he made these two shifts, he made the million-dollar milestone in a space of only 7months!
I’m sharing this with you because we can learn a huge amount from this and relate it back to our health, body and wellbeing.
But let’s just take a quick look at what was going here with these two mindset shifts…
For the first one, he removed the belief that in order to reach your goal, or something that feels out of reach, it has to be harder. It’s funny but we usually assume that about something we haven’t been able to achieve or keep up…
But what if it could actually be easier than you think?
And what if the very idea of it being hard work, or the actual hard work you’re putting in, actually stops you from achieving your goal and possibly even moves you further away from it?
Have you ever questioned that?
In relation to your health, wellbeing and weight – are you imagining that reaching your goals will require a lot of you? Maybe you think you need to be very strict with your food and calories, perhaps you feel you need to be exercising a lot of the time and burning lots of calories. Perhaps you find yourself drinking protein shakes and bars that you don’t really like. So, you assume there’s some element of suffering involved in reaching the goal…
But what if I told you it didn’t need to be that way. That it could be far easier than you imagined and that in truth, all of that restriction, lack of pleasure and over exertion might be creating the very problem you want to correct….?
Because unless you’re eating far too much food and of the wrong kind (i.e. lots of processed food) then very restrictive diets and punishing fitness regimes, for the most part, set you up to fail.
Secondly, Rob changed his motive from being successful, which in his eyes was making $1M, to serving people. So, what he actually did here was shift from focusing on the end goal, which is also the more self-motivated, more ego aspect of the goal, to focusing on how he could help and serve people – which is a shift in focus to the present and the now and more into his heart connecting with some bigger than his ego.
We can apply this to your health and your body by shifting your focus away from looking at the end result – which might be weight loss or improving your appearance, maybe you want to heal an ailment/injury or simply just feeling better…
To looking at serving – serving your body!
So instead you focus on what you can do to help your body every day, in the present moment. You focus on what would be good for your body, what would feel good, tuning in to what it needs, getting really well connected with your body so that you know what to do in any given moment.
For example, that may mean going to bed early or taking a nap when you feel tired, rather than pushing through.
It may mean listening to your appetite and eating what you feel like, whilst also bearing in mind the kind of foods that are good quality and nourishing for your body.
It may mean cancelling that fitness class or run if you’ve pulled a muscle, instead of taking some pain killers so that you can do it pain free.
It may mean making sure you’re drinking enough water throughout the day.
And it definitely would mean that you’re closely monitoring your thoughts and catching yourself when-ever you say or think anything negative about yourself…
These mindset shifts are the keys to lasting health transformations as well as business transformations!!
It’s funny how ultimately the same shift of focus and energy also applies to both, but actually, if I were a relationship coach you could also apply this to relationship success!
Why?
Because what you’re ultimately doing, is moving from fear and more ego-based needs to love, which makes you think about what you can give and how you can be kind, rather than what can you get and how it has to be hard.
As Rob also said on the podcast, when you focus on serving and giving, it gives strength when you come up against doubt, uncertainty and fear. It is a complete game changer, I can tell you that from my own personal experience with my business and health and also for so many of the clients I’ve helped make this shift.
So, what if your health and wellness goals are actually easier to achieve than you think, and what if by being kind to yourself and your body you could get there a lot quicker and more effortlessly…?
What would you change, and what might you do differently, {!firstname_fix}?
Reply to this email and let me know, I read every one and I love to hear your comments!
Here’s to letting it be easy and loving,
Love,
Kate x