Deprivation doesn’t work. Before you throw out all of that food in your fridge and cupboards and pledge yourself to a post-polar bear swim New Year’s resolution of broccoli, egg whites, tuna and yams, I want to mention just a thing or two.
Know Your Gears. I encourage clients to work in phases. I’m a ‘quarterly’ girl myself, three-month phases. Sometimes we’re working at 80-20. Other times it’s 60-40. And sometimes we’re lucky if it is 50-50. It’s super-unhealthy not only physically but also mentally and emotionally to live your life either ‘on your diet’ or ‘off your diet’. That would mean you are constantly viewing yourself and your efforts as either ‘winning’ or ‘failing’. That sucks. Instead, I’d like to offer you an alternative lens from which to view your progress and it’s differing yet complementary levels. Most of the time, the typical busy woman works through her life in third gear, trying to eat somewhat clean and regularly attempting to complete some form of exercise. At times, it falls back to second gear when we’re over-committed in other areas of our lives, but we do our best. Other times, we buckle down and commit to a new goal, hire a trainer, find a workout buddy, join a running group or a new class and elevate our efforts to fourth gear. That is, we COMMIT, we set a success STRATEGY, create a doable PLAN and find someone to be ACCOUNTABLE to in order to up our ante. And perhaps if things go really well, we decide we want to compete in something or push ourselves just that much further, we may even hit fifth gear… for a period of time. But just as it is not healthy or possible to run a car continually in fifth gear, we may see second gear or even first again in our future. And so goes the natural ebb and flow of the life of a busy woman who prioritizes her health on all levels. Prepare for it. Accept it. Own it.
Know Your Success Factors. New Year’s resolutions run rampant. Some are broken down into success strategies and tangible goals. If you want to take your chances for success a step further, I encourage you to write out what you are COMMITTING to and give yourself a set period of time you feel you can start with (6-week goals are great). Keep it real. Keep it doable. If you are having difficulty figuring out what you are ready to commit to, take a step back and figure out your Cause. Why are you doing this? What is your reason or purpose? What is the difference your are trying to make, and how will this commitment move your forward? Here’s an example: A woman sets a New Year’s resolution (every year!) to lose weight. Every year, come December she’s the exact same weight or perhaps even a couple pounds heavier. Why should 2014 be any different? First of all, she needs to back up the bus and get really clear on her Cause. In this example, perhaps she’s just had a new grand-baby! All of a sudden staying healthy and active takes on a whole new priority with a much stronger ‘why’. She re-commits to her goal with a renewed sense of optimism and purpose, sets up her success strategy, breaks it down into tangible goals and finds who and what she needs to keep her on track ~ a plan that she can be held accountable to.
Lateral Shifts Increase Your Likelihood of Success. Going back to my opening statement, “Deprivation doesn’t work.” Lateral shifts are about better choices, one degree at a time. Here’s a few examples of some lateral shifts that we practice in our household:
- Shifting from chips to hot-air popcorn with butter-flavoured olive oil
- From sugary cereal to oatmeal with fresh fruit and a splash of honey or maple syrup
- From ice cream to a frozen banana with protein powder and a splash of almond milk
- From bacon ‘n eggs to a crustless spinach quiche
- From lasagna to veggie lasagna with zucchini instead of noodles
- Pasta to spaghetti squash with tomato sauce
- Candy to dried mango or cut-up chunks of protein bars, frozen
- Deep-fried pakoras to curried cauliflower
- And, there’s so many more…
Remember, this is a lifestyle change. If you can’t see yourself doing something five years from now, it will not create lasting change and should not be part of a solid success strategy. All of the above information is only valuable if it is put into practice. Don’t get overwhelmed with the amount of information available, take it in small bits and focus on implementation. Most people fail but their daily practice isn’t consistent.
If you need some help implementing a regular daily practice into your life, you may want to check out our new online lifestyle management program, It’s a PowHERful Life, Your 90-Day Guide to Exceptional Living. It’s proven. It’s successful. It works.
We’ll leave you with a sample of the valuable tangible tools that help our clients to be successful because we want YOU to be successful! Here is a complimentary copy of our PowHERhouse PH Meal Planning weekly outline.
We hope you have a PowHERful year! The stronger we are, the stronger we are!
PowHERhouse, The Muscle behind Your Mission.
