How to Create Healthy and Sustainable Lifestyle Changes
Let’s start with the three main mistakes to avoid so you can set yourself up for success so you can create sustainable lifestyle change and get back on the path if you fallen off track.
Mistake Number One: Try to change everything about your life all at once. Unless you’re having a medical emergency where you need to change your diet, sleep patterns, stop drinking caffeine and alcohol and start working out.
Start making small changes over time to help you sustain the new lifestyle habits.
Mistake Number Two: Try to make yourself move/exercise in a way that you hate. For example, trying to make yourself go to the gym even if you hate going to the gym.
Some people say they don’t like any kind of movement. If that is you, then first exercise patience and compassion and commit to find some way of moving your body.
Play and experiment to find movement you enjoy! Start slow, do what you can and be committed to learn to like moving your body in some way.
Mistake Number Three: Beating yourself up and giving up on yourself if you get off track or if you fail.
I want you to know that you are going to get off track!
The magic key is to just be OKAY knowing you will get off track and make a plan for what to do when you do.
Forgive yourself, recommit and make adjustments (to your goals if needed) to make sure you can move forward in a positive way.
So in setting your intentions and goals, make sure that your intentions aren’t making those mistakes, then you are setting yourself up for lasting lifestyle changes.
Real life examples in creating a healthy lifestyle that lasts:
Change to healthy eating: I started shifting my nutrition when I was a teenager because I had skin issues, extreme allergies and asthma so I was on medication, sick, in the emergency room regularly and often really miserable.
I felt in my bones that something else was possible and I wanted a better life. So I started experimenting with my nutrition because I grew up eating what I now consider is not food, you know, just complete crap junk food.
Now I eat pretty clean, well really clean compared to what I grew up eating.
I didn’t change it all at once. It’s been gradual changes over time that are sustainable and easy to eat clean 80% of the time, I don’t do it perfectly and I don’t have to.
If you have a medical condition that you have to be super strict, then do what you must to to regain your health. But if it’s not an emergency, then I encourage you to make gradual changes over time so that you can sustain it.
Consistent workouts: In 2020, I set an intention to walk 1000 miles, which is 2.7 miles per day average to meet my goal.
A few weeks into the year I felt inspired to added a clarifying intention to walk a minimum of one mile a day so I wouldn’t get too far off track.
At first I felt resistance to the addition and wondered if I was just making my intention more difficult, yet within one week it became very clear that, it was a brilliant and helpful addition.
Here’s the thing to remember about creating change >>> GETTING STARTED IS THE HARDEST PART!
I love hiking and being out in nature. So for me, it isn’t that I don’t want to walk, but I can get so wrapped up in my day or in a stress cycle that I get stuck in the belief that “I don’t have time.”
So the beautiful thing about setting the intention to get out for at least a mile a day is most often when I DO have the time, then I will go further.
There have been a few nights that I walked the neighborhood in the dark to at least get my mile and that is great. I wouldn’t have done that in the past if I wouldn’t have set this intention.
This intention to do more of what I love and getting started means that I’m able to shift out of stress and get moving then I feel so much better.
Beating yourself up is NEVER OKAY: I set my intention to make 50 videos this year, I’m still behind yet I am actively working to get on track.
There are other intentions that I’ve set for this year that I am behind on and I’m not beating myself up, I just am showing up and doing my best. I’m still holding those intentions because it’s there’s still time to make it happen.
My intention It is lighting a fire because I am not stuck beating myself up for being behind.
For example today I don’t feel like making a video and I almost didn’t but guess what? I’m showing up to make the video I’m also not beating myself up that I’m behind.
Taking action and moving in the direction of what you want, showing up for your intentions and goals and forgiving ourselves when we get off track is a golden key to healing and sustainable change.
You must practice being on your own team!
If you would like more support and creating lasting lifestyle change, click the link and you can get the PDF that will support you to clarify your intention and create a plan for success.