One question I get asked a lot is why there’s so much conflicting information in the health and wellness arenas. Many times, people are specifically wondering about dietary guidelines…like whether or not eating animal-based products is imperative to getting adequate protein and nutrients, or if doing so is actually putting them on the fast track to atherosclerosis and an early death. Great questions, and the answer is never cut and dried.
One of the first things I learned in health coach training is that the most honest and accurate answer when people ask such questions is, “It depends!” Frustrating, right? Don’t we all just want to know exactly what we should be doing so we can get busy doing it? If only it were that easy.
As nuanced as the answers are about specific health practices, the same can be said about how to go about changing lifestyle habits that are no longer serving you. One habit change guru will tell you to harness the power of focus…just give one hundred percent effort to the habit you want to build, and in twenty-one days, you’ll be a whole new you! Uh, sure! We’ve all tried that and realized the process must have more to it than they’re telling us, and that ‘21-Days to a Brand New You’ was likely just a zippy tagline to help them sell eBooks on Amazon.
Another guru will say that you need to stop focusing on the problematic habit…that focusing on it will just make it bigger. Somewhere in the nebulous recesses of your mind, you instinctively know that this isn’t the answer either. If you don’t address your problem, it’s going to stay, well, a problem!
There must be a happy medium.
I sincerely believe that the answer lies in the middle. It is indeed a balance between focus and forgetfulness.
If you are reading this, you already have the desire to make some changes in your life, most likely to experience vibrant health and soul-deep wellness, but honestly, you know that better health isn’t really the ultimate end goal. You want to have vibrant health in order to do all the amazing things you dream about doing and to enjoy the people you love, right? You also recognize that your health status doesn’t reside in a separate box from the rest of your life. Everything is connected, which means that health coaching is really life coaching.
That being said, what is the balance between focus and forgetfulness? What does that even mean?
First, let’s talk about FOCUS.
If I asked you how you would envision your ideal life in one, three or five years, what would you say? Most people would say they want to enjoy vibrant health and spend more time with their loved ones. Others may say they envision starting a ministry, coaching business or perhaps even traveling the world to take in some awe-inspiring hikes. The answers are as individual as fingerprints, and there’s no wrong response! This is your vision. You know how you’d ideally like to experience life and are most likely painfully aware of the gap between where you are now and where you dream of being.
This is all part of the focusing process. It’s energizing to create a vision for your future that you can actually FEEL right now. Harnessing this vision and the energy it creates is like having a GPS in your mind’s eye that is constantly reminding you of where you really want to go.
The next part of focusing is deciding what actions you need to take to make the long-term vision a reality. This is the nitty-gritty, and just as you focused on the big picture in the previous step, you’re going to focus on the minutia to actually make it happen.
Think about this for a moment… just as a life of one hundred years is made up of months, weeks, days, hours and seconds, the way we live our lives is made up of all the tiny habits that accumulate over time. The only way to truly change our experience of life is to change what we regularly do. Yet depending on where you’re starting, this truth can seem overwhelming.
That’s why it’s so important to focus on changing one or two habits at a time, just small shifts that are both challenging AND doable and will give you some success and confidence to keep moving forward.
It’s as simple as that.
For example, changing what I ate for breakfast was one of the first habits I decided to tackle when I knew I needed to reduce my carb intake and eliminate gluten. My plan was to eat chia pudding with berries one day and eggs with vegetables the next, alternating as time constraints dictated. Easy peasy, right?
I didn’t worry about lunch or dinner right away, except to ditch regular bread for gluten-free varieties.
What is the first doable habit that comes to mind that you can start focusing on immediately?
The next idea is that of FORGETFULNESS.
What the heck does that mean?
It was psychiatrist Carl Jung who stated:
“The greatest and most important problems of life are all in a certain sense insoluble…They can never be solved, but only outgrown…This “outgrowing,” as I formerly called it, on further experience was seen to consist in a new level of consciousness. Some higher and wider interest arose on the person’s horizon, and through this widening of view, the insoluble problem lost its urgency. It was not solved logically in its own terms, but faded out when confronted with a new and stronger life-tendency.”
BINGO! Thanks, Carl Jung!
In essence, that’s the heart of coaching…helping people reconnect with what brings them joy and tap into a renewed sense of energy and excitement around the adventure that is life! I’ve seen it happen several times where clients only need a few sessions with me to get their gears turning and they are off to the races, so to speak, with full hearts and dazzling dreams to keep them in motion. The ‘daily doing’ actually becomes fun!
If you know instinctively that this is what you need, I’m currently offering my Vibrant Health Kickstart 3-session Mini-package. Available through November 15th. You can learn more and sign up below.
Questions? Feel free to contact me directly at info@abundanthopehealthcoaching.com
