However much you think you want to change your eating habits, feel better about yourself and take up some appropriate exercise, there is always the comfort of staying exactly where you are. Change is difficult and at some level, you are invested in staying safe and doing what you have always done. This blog will give you some great tips on how to change a bad habit and create new healthy habits with ease.
One of my coaching principles is to meet yourself where you are now. Acceptance and knowledge of yourself will help to guide you forward. Allowing yourself to be influenced by what others are doing is not serving you. Your first step towards change is to understand yourself and avoiding the comparison with others. Begin with understanding who you are and what you say to yourself each week, what is going on in your mind chatter?
Truthfully understanding and listen to yourself
There is an emotional investment in keeping your life as it is, change can feel hard so we make excuses not to change and stand still instead of moving forward.
Excuses can feel very legitimate but being aware of them, listening to yourself and outlining your excuses will enable you to be aware of them and change them. If you can see how you sidetrack yourself from your goal by using what feels like a legitimate and honest ‘excuse’ barrier you can see that it prevents you from being the person you want to be.
At first they may feel a little difficult to uncover, but once you realise your favourite excuse you will understand what is holding you back. Don’t miss what is your favourite excuse?
The more invested you are in your excuse the harder it is to see it and to release yourself from it. It is easy to hide behind an excuse, especially if you spice it up with a heavy load of emotion and drama. And let’s be honest we all love a bit of drama 🙂
Recognise your ‘brand’ of an excuse and notice how you justify why you can’t stick to your healthier lifestyle
You know that you are not getting yourself fit and it is not:
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- Your hormones
- Not your mum
- Not because you are exhausted
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These are symptoms of your excuses and your subconscious opinion will collect evidence to prove that “you can’t lose weight” or “you can’t get healthy” and that belief then becomes a truth for you. Over time you collect enough evidence to turn that theory into a strongly held personal belief about yourself.
Create a healthy habit
Break out of your excuse mode and introduce some calm, simple habits and you will feel:
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- Clear-headed
- Calm
- Less likely to react to small issues
- Happier
- Fitter
- Focused
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Be honest with yourself recognise your excuse pattern, shine the light of awareness on what is holding you back and using up your precious time and energy. Then you will be ready to move on and move forward with your life and your healthy habits.
The next big question is how do you change this, once you recognise that you are making excuses and things are within your control how can you make your dreams a reality? how can you keep a promise to yourself?
How to keep a promise to yourself
When you keep a promise to yourself it is a sign of your personal integrity.
When you keep a promise to yourself you can trust yourself, you feel happier, your self-esteem and confidence grow and you have personal pride and integrity.
When you ignore yourself or break a promise to yourself the feeling is not immediate, it will have a long-term continual effect of unfulfillment. You’ll notice that you are letting your dreams go.
Actioning your habits will help you to realise your longer term dreams. Habits align your actions with your dream. Your dreams come from your heart (your desires) and habits turn your desires into actions
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- Heart (desire)
- Mind (plan)
- Body (action)
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How to keep your promise
Here is what you can do to honour yourself and stick to your personal promise:
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- Be realistic and believe that it can happen
- Stretch yourself consider drinking not 5 glasses of water a day but 8 join the water challenge and get support join water challenge
- Specific, your new habit needs to be wiggle proof, make yourself accountable and tell someone what you are going to do
- Use powerful and evocative language that resonates with you, not I hope or I will try or I wish…. go for I will or I can
- Think ahead – think through and plan how you are going accomplish your goal if it is as simple as water, do you have a water carrier for your dog walk?
- Ironically the more you resent the promise that you have made the more you need it.
- Write out your excuse if you failed and the consequence you will have to do and then a tick box at the end if you kept it.
- Accountability buddy – not a pal or someone that has the same beliefs and theories as you, not somebody that has the same excuses and inner dialogue as you, somebody who will motivate and help you to be positive and on track.
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Don’t miss: Who am I and why did I create Get Gorgeous
Make your ‘consequence’ uncomfortable
Make the consequence of inactivity or lack of commitment really really personal to you.
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- If you love your Friday night wine, no wine that week.
- Donate £10 to Trump or a politician you hate, I feel uncomfortable just writing that! Imagine how motivating that would be if it was truly personal to you?
- No coffee for a week
- No chocolate for a week
- No internet for a day!
- No favourite TV show/Netflix series for a week!
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I would love to know what your consequences are, you don’t have to strip naked and hit yourself with a birch twig. It would be interesting to know which consequences you would stick to, let me know below
Do you want to dive into this? Would you like to find out more about yourself and what excuses you use, then schedule a call with me to discover your blocks. Investigate what is pulling you away from your health goals. By the end of the call, you’ll know exactly what you need to do get your health goals in place. Once you are clear on that, we can discuss ways that I can help you to get your plan your health strategy in easy steps. We may decide to work together to help you reach your health goals successfully – and if so great – if not then that’s okay too. You’ll still have a clear plan to move your life forward.
Book your next step a Health Discovery Session
Get Gorgeous is a journey together – yours and mine.
PS. Gorgeous! is your insight into great health and vitality Gorgeous! how to look and feel fantastic every day. Click here to buy your Gorgeous book
Find out what other clients have to say…
*Reference: Lauren Handel Zander “Maybe it’s you”
