It just takes one small step each day to move forward.
We all know what we ‘should’ be doing every day to achieve optimal health right? You know, eat whole foods, reduce sugar intake, exercise for an hour each day, meditate on rising, be out in nature, no screens an hour or two before bed, don’t drink alcohol and the list goes on. I don’t know about you but I’m getting overwhelmed just reading this list! There will be times where you get super motivated and by some seemingly mystical feat you can get up early for that jog before downing your super-food-super-green smoothy, almost achieve levitation status in your morning meditation and solve world hunger with your meal prep for the week. That is until you fall off the wagon and roll all the way down the hill hitting every binge rock of all that you have missed along the way down. So how does one go about achieving this holy grail of health and manage to maintain it?
Small. Achievable. Goals. Daily. Yep! Here is your get out of jail free pass; You don’t have to do it all at once. Choose one area that you would like to add in or change and break it up into small achievable portions. Do it until it is easy to do or easy to remember then move on to the next thing. What does this look like? Say I would like to add in some meditation as a daily practice to gain a clearer, more collected mind or reduce my stress and anxiety. What I would do is start by finding a sitting position that works for me. Then I’d choose an amount of time that gives me enough time to practice without driving me to insanity trying to tame the monkey in my mind. Then its time to pick the type of meditation I think I can handle (so not one where you ‘just clear the mind of all thoughts’). All together this might look like: sitting on two cushions with your legs loosely crossed for 5 minutes while listening to a guided body check meditation. You start with 5 minutes, then when that becomes easy you just add another 2-5minutes to your practice. Once you reach your time goal you may like to move on to trying different meditation styles or adding o more days of meditation. The key is slowly building yourself toward your health goals, so you don’t get overwhelmed - build the foundation, then the house around it.
Sometimes simply knowing where to start can be the hardest part. This is why it can be helpful to have someone to work with. It could be a friend or your partner who has similar health goals (although keep in mind you may not match on every step and that’s ok because there is only one you!) You may have a mentor or someone who has similar values or is living your health dreams that you can get some advice from. You may even know of a Naturopath who is passionate about helping people implement positive, beneficial changes into their patient’s lives. Wink, wink.
This strategy may make the process a little slower than you initially anticipated, the reward however is that by taking your time to build the foundations you are able to form healthy habits that stay with you for a lifetime. And the best part is that before you know it you will have reached your goals without having to force yourself, and you don’t get that ‘failed at another thing’ feeling at the end. The other thing I love about this technique is that it can be applied to all areas of your life. Whether it be for you mind, body or soul!
You just need to remember small achievable goals daily. You have got this!
By Regina Eylward-Piko (BHSc-Nat) August 2020