Category Archives: Motivation

How to Have a Good Body Day, Every Day

To wear makeup or not wear makeup? Unrealistic and confusing beauty and body messages can make us feel like crap about our bodies. Here are some great ways to have a good body day every day!

One of the things people get completely obsessed with in our culture is the idea of having a “good” body, a “perfect” body or just meeting generic body “goals” criteria. A “good” body for women seems to be defined as one with lower body fat, at least lower body fat everywhere except for our breasts and butt (those need to be plump and round), moderate muscle (but not too much, if you have too much, you’re too “manly”), no stretch marks, stray hairs, dimples or any other imperfections. You can’t have any belly fat and certainly no skin rolls when you sit down.

A “good” body should possess tank top arms, daisy duke worthy thighs, and is synonymous with a “bikini body”. Other physical traits of a person with a “good” body should include a pretty face (but not so pretty that you look like you had work done – that’s too much!), no wrinkles, perfect skin (ew, who do you think you are with those visible pores?!) and they have to be a natural beauty (if it’s obvious that you’re wearing makeup you’re trying too hard and you’re deceiving people). Being ghostly pale is no good but you better not be too tan either. You should look like the girl next door, but also be mysterious and exotic. You need to be all of these things at the same time and you should look as good when you get up in the morning as you do when you go out to the clubs . . .but you better not have to put any effort in to look that way or you are fake AF!

I’m kidding if you can’t tell.

This is the kind of ridiculous stuff that is flung at us day by day.

The way we talk about women’s bodies and beauty ideals is completely unobtainable and trying to achieve it would drive even the most sane person to total insanity. There’s no fucking way any real human can meet all of these criteria (and anyone who can, can’t do so for more than a moment in their whole life). There’s no way you can be subjected to this stuff and not feel completely horrible about your body.

The result of living in a culture that sends out these kind of messages and values this kind of impossible beauty more than almost anything else is that women all over and of all ages wake up every morning and go to bed each night worrying about if they ate too much, if they ate the right things, if they’re working their bodies hard enough, if they should think about starting botox and fillers, if they are using the right skin care products, if they need to think about getting a breast lift or butt implants, if they really do need a nose job and when they’re going to finally achieve that thigh gap. They fear aging more than anything else, because aging takes away what little physical beauty nature gave them in the first place. That shit is cruel.

You need to know that you already have a GOOD body. In fact you have a GREAT body, an incredible, amazing body. We don’t have to go around feeling like our bodies are less than but we need to take a more active role and a different approach to feel this way.

How to Have a Good Body Day, Every Day

If you’re tired of feeling like crap about your body, read on. Here are a few ways that you can actively work to have a good body day every day

Clean Up Media Sources that Suck (both social and otherwise)

Check your media sources and scrub them of people and ideologies that aren’t helping. Unfollow people on social media that make you feel like terrible about yourself. This can be people you know who are negative or over sharing details about their diets that you don’t need forced in your face all the time or nonstop unattainable #bodygoals #bodyinspo type of posts – bloggers, recipe mavens, people doing fitness competitions or those promoting detox teas and stuff – if it’s making you feel terrible about your body, you don’t need it in your life.

On the reverse, start adding people who make you feel amazing and who share a message that aligns with the things you believe and the things you WANT to believe about yourself. Add people on social media of all shapes and sizes and backgrounds who live lives you want to emulate and who you also respect.

Toss out and cancel magazine subscriptions to women’s and health magazines that write nonstop articles about how you can drop two dress sizes in 14 days or who only share “skinny recipes”. If you finish reading a magazine and feel like there is something wrong with your body because of the content inside, it’s not helping. Same with TV shows, news stations, podcasts, radio, the websites you’ve been visiting for a decade – try looking at them with new eyes and ask yourself if they are filling your brain with messages that hurt or help you?

The media we consume daily has a huge effect on us and most of us don’t realize it until we start changing the way we interact with it. This will change how you feel about your body in a big way!

Dress Your Current Body to Feel Fabulous

The delicious meat of life doesn’t come from how we look or how the people we spend time with look. Even though that’s true, there is no denying that when you feel like you look fabulous, you act and think differently. And when we act and think well of ourselves we take more actions that affect a positive outcome on our lives. That’s why I advocate for dressing yourself and styling yourself in a way that makes you feel amazing, in your current body. Not your future body, not a past body. The body your spirit is inside of right now, at this very moment.

Have at least a few outfits in your closet that you feel fantastic in – and don’t necessarily stick to one size. A lot of women’s bodies fluctuate between a size or two or three and what happens when we get dressed and our clothes don’t fit? We feel like crap and you don’t have to feel that way. I know I tend to be a good 5-10 pounds heavier at the end of winter than I am at the end of summer so my closet (finally!!) reflects that reality and I’m a lot happier now.

High quality clothing can be expensive and we’re all tight on money, that’s for sure, but that’s no excuse to not making this happen. Chic pieces can be found at consignment stores everywhere on the cheap and if you have zero funds to spend, there is always the option of throwing a closet cleaning party with friends (like this Naked Lady Party). The real struggle with dressing the way you want to in the body you are currently in is less about money and more about the time and effort it takes to find stuff that flatters your particular shape and style. That’s where the media cleanse above can come in helpful (add fashion bloggers who have your body shape and style for inspiration) and online shopping can be a godsend of a time saver (compare your current body measurements to each retailer’s size charts ahead of time and order the size that you know will fit your now body, not just because it’s a size you usually wear. And return it if it doesn’t fit or you don’t love it.

And don’t you dare buy clothes for your future body. That body may never be a reality and those clothes will just make you feel terrible each time you check to see if they fit. Buy clothes for your now body and make them good ones!

Choose to Talk About Something Else

When we get together with our girlfriends, we talk about everything under the sun, but one subject that always seems to come up is what’s wrong with our bodies or what new thing we’re going to try to change our body this time. Diet talk is huge and even if you’re not on a diet, women want to talk to you about why you’re not on one or how you’re so “lucky” to be able to eat “that way”. It’s so normal we don’t even notice how much of our conversations are around this stuff! I can’t tell you how many women I “bonded” with over the years (before I was in coaching) based on weight loss tips, lighter recipes and fitness challenges and it feels kind of scary to stop talking about that stuff, because suddenly you feel like you don’t fit in. As scary and uncomfortable as it can be to not participate in this kind of talk, it’s absolutely worth doing.

You don’t have to be aggressive and confrontational. You don’t have to make a big deal about it or even say anything if you don’t want to. But if you make the effort to change the conversation or at least not participate, you will have an impact, not just on yourself, but on others too. Eventually people notice that you aren’t talking about your own diet or body unhappiness and they’ll specifically ask your thoughts and you can share your feelings then. If you feel more comfortable talking about this stuff, it’s helpful and usually goes over ok to just say “Hey, do you guys mind if we talk about something else? Diet talk is so boring, isn’t it?” or “Negative body talk just makes me feel worse, how about you? Let’s talk about what we do like about our bodies.”

It is hard to change the conversation but so worth doing.

Remind Yourself of All the Reasons You Have a Good Body Every day

I can list at least a dozen reasons why I have a good body. My body isn’t better than yours or more special than yours, but I take the time to recognize and acknowledge all the ways it does me right on a regular basis. Doing this makes me feel appreciation, love and generosity towards it. It makes me see less of what I don’t like and more of what I do. I have a good body because: I have legs that carry me everywhere I want to go. I have eyes that allow me to read juicy fiction and study old genealogical records. I have lungs that take in breaths while I sleep peacefully and also when I’m running outside. I have a good body that recovers from colds pretty quickly (also one that rarely gets sick). My good body takes the food I eat and digests it so that I have energy to do lots of fun things. My good body is equipped with strong muscles that make me feel like wonder woman every time I bring home groceries and have to lug them up the basement stairs. My body is a good body because it’s mine and it does so much for me.

Can you come up a with a few reasons why your body is a good body right now? It might be hard at first (especially if you’re not used to thinking nice stuff about your body) but with practice it gets much easier.

Move Your Body only in Ways That Feel Good

Physical fitness is really important to me. I LOVE feeling strong and capable and regular physical activity helps me do that. I like not getting too tuckered out from regular daily stuff that I have to do. I don’t want to feel winded doing basic tasks. That motivates me to do things that challenge me physically, but it doesn’t mean that I ignore what my body needs and wants. If I hate an activity, I’m not going to be able to do it for long. If an activity causes me regular pain or is total torture to get through, it’s not sustainable. If I dread an exercise, I’m not going to keep doing it. Dread, hate, pain and torture are fast tracks to both permanently avoiding exercise but also feeling bad about your body.

There is an infinite amount of ways we can move our bodies and get the activity we need. Bodies crave movement (even the most sedentary person sometimes gets a feeling of restlessness in their body) and there’s no reason why we have to put our attention on activity that isn’t enjoyable. If you don’t like going to the gym, don’t go to the gym! If you don’t like running, don’t run. If you don’t like zumba, don’t zumba! Try something else! What did you like doing as a child? I spend hours biking around town, rollerskating in my driveway and exploring the swamp in my back yard. As an adult, some of the activities I do include wheels (biking) and being out in nature (hiking, running). I can find some of the “fun” I used to find in movement as a child in the activities I choose as an adult. Don’t settle for what you are doing if you don’t dig it.

A body that enjoys moving is a body that you will appreciate and enjoy more. A body that gets it’s fill of fun activity feels good. Find activities that make you feel good about your body that you will want to continue to do and you’ll find more “good” in your body daily.

So there you go – 5 easy ways to have a good body day every day! This isn’t to make light of the challenges of feeling good in your skin. I know that stuff can be all consuming, but if we don’t feel like we have any power in changing it, where does that leave us? Miserable in the only body we have. My goal is to give you tools and ideas you can use in your own life to feel good about your body and the way you engage with food. Does this help do that? Let me know!

Have you ever wondered if you have what it takes to repair your relationship with food? Download “You Have What it Takes“, my coaching and journaling guide for beginners who want to change their relationship with food. Just click below and enter you email!

Change How You Talk To Yourself, Change Your Story (and Your Outcome)

Leave a reply

Try changing how you talk to yourself when something is too hard. Can it change your story? Can it change your outcome?

On the rail trail, my feet hit the gravel covered ground one after the other.

I’m out for a run with John (who is training for his 1st 5K).

The first few minutes of a run are so hard for me. Every time. Without fail.

Doesn’t matter how much or how little I’ve been running lately.

It doesn’t matter if I’ve been eating well or living it up.

It does not matter what kind of shape I’m in or what kind of night’s sleep I’ve had, for me, the first 10 minutes or so always feel like my feet are encased in cement blocks.

But if I can just get through those first few minutes, I come out on the other side and start to feel like I’m gliding easily. One step falls in front of the other, over and over. I find the natural rhythm that comes from my body, a pace that I set. I start to feel like I could keep going like this forever (barring any foot or knee pain surfacing as it sometimes does!).

During those first 10 minutes where I just want to stop, there are countless thoughts that appear in my head and most of them have to do with “Just stop running.” “You can stop now.” “You should walk instead, this sucks.” “Why are you doing this. Let’s walk!”

Years ago, I went around saying I wasn’t a runner, because when I felt the difficulty of those first few minutes and heard those thoughts over and over again, I did stop. I took those things to mean that this wasn’t for me. The story I was telling myself about my abilities and it being hard added up to giving up.

There is massive power in the stories we tell ourselves.

If I tell myself, I’m not a runner, then I become someone who doesn’t run because I believe the story I’ve made up.

Doing something differently though brings me different results and allows a new story to form.

On some runs, as my feet hit the trail, one after the other, those first 10 minutes are still hard. And I still have thoughts about how I should stop and how it would be easier if I just started walking. But on some runs, I add some of my own thoughts. I say to myself:

You can do this.

You are amazing.

Look at how far you have come.

How incredible is it that your body can do this?!

I love that you are doing this.

I can’t wait to see how far I can go today.

This feels good.

You really are amazing.

And guess what happens? Those 10 minutes pass faster and the entire run feels better. I feel better. The story I create changes from my mind telling me “this is so hard, I shouldn’t do it”, to “this is hard but I’m totally capable of doing it and it’s going to be great”.

And the result is that it is great.

(Just to be clear, I am not advocating for ignoring your body when it warns you that something is dangerous. Sometimes our bodies tell us we should stop because we’re going to injure ourselves or that we’re not at that level of fitness yet. But you know the difference between that and the habitual negative self talk that we sometimes get into. I always recommend listening to your body (and that is not the same as ignoring the bullshit we like to tell ourselves). The mean and demoralizing chatter that comes from our brain is not the same as the warning signals our body sends. Always use your best judgement!)

The words we use to talk to ourselves are so incredibly powerful.

Most of us try to motivate ourselves with shame. It doesn’t matter if it’s to stick to some sort of goal, to make habit change or push ourselves out of our comfort zone. If there’s something we want to do but it’s really hard, shame is our go to.

You’re not good enough. You’re not smart enough. You don’t have what it takes. You just can’t do it.

Sound familiar?

These thoughts are not just something that happens with challenging physical endeavors. It’s something that will happen when we apply for a new job, when we go out on a date, when we try something new or anytime we’re doing something unfamiliar.

Shame “speak” protects us emotionally. We know that if we feel bad enough about something we might have the motivation to change it. If we feel bad about ourselves, we’ll stay small, we won’t take risks and we are less likely to get hurt. As far as our brain is concerned, that is always the goal (to stay SAFE) so it really thinks by putting these thoughts through your head when you’re trying to do something difficult, it’s helping. It’s trying to be a buddy! This is something we subconsciously do – and there’s no way to stop those thoughts from appearing. But that doesn’t mean we have to let them be the star of the show or in control.

When these thoughts show up, if we take a minute to step in and use the part of our conscious mind that we have access to, we can add our own spin to motivate, to encourage, to inspire.

You are not your thoughts. And just because you think something doesn’t make it true.

If you have a date with a new person coming up, your go to thought might be something like: “Ug, he’s not going to be interested in me. I should cancel before he rejects me. This is going to be awful.” When that shows up, so what? Add to it by telling yourself something like this instead: “I can’t wait to meet this person. I hope we have lots to talk about. I’m excited to see if we have chemistry. I’m a good catch and this will be fun!”

If you have a job interview, your go to thought might be something like: “I don’t know what I’m talking about. I answer every question so badly. I can’t sell my best qualities. This is a nightmare and I’m not going to get the job.” Well, when that shows up, so what? These thoughts aren’t you. Add to it by telling yourself something like this instead: “I am going to be relaxed and be myself. I know my field and I have a ton of great stuff to say about it. I am going to blow them away and if I want the job, it’ll be offered to me.”

You can even try this with the negative thoughts you have about your body, or about the food you eat. Add your own positive or neutral spin on those thoughts.

This isn’t magic. You can’t make things happen that weren’t going to happen otherwise, but you can change how you show up in life, how you interact with your world and how people perceive you. The most important thing is be more proactive with your self-talk will change how you perceive yourself and over time that will add up to a little less of the bullshit self- talk and more confidence and surety in every area of your life.

Because you ARE amazing, valuable, talented and worth it, even if sometimes you don’t believe it.

Some stuff to get your journal out for:

Where do you keep giving up on yourself when you hear negative self-talk thoughts?

What stories are you telling about yourself based on intrusive negative thoughts?

During those times, what are some more motivating things you could tell yourself?

What do you need to hear from yourself?

Just try it. I promise it will change everything for you.

Do you want to learn more about feeling confident in your relationship with food? Are you just in the beginning phases of trusting yourself? If so, click the image below and grab my copy of “You Have What it Takes“, a guide full of questions to help you improve your relationship to food.

What Does Being “Fit” Mean to You?

Leave a reply

What does being fit mean to you? Try to remember that fit doesn’t always look like what we think it should look like. Try focusing on function and the joy you get from activity.

If you were an alien visiting this planet for the first time and taking in all the different sources of information we have available to us (TV, internet, magazines/newspapers, books etc) to learn about your new planet and it’s people, you’d quickly form opinions and ideas about our society.

Some of these would be absolutely and hysterically incorrect but others would be very accurate.

For example, an alien might come to believe that “Twitter” is a God who doles out important edicts in 140 characters or less, all day long.

They may determine that our primary food source is french fries and burgers from McDonald’s (and don’t forget the Coke!).

They may wonder why some people on this planet are starving and yet other parts of the world have grocery stores that are so overflowing with food that some of it gets tossed in the trash every day. They may come to believe that every American swallows a small white circle called a “pill” that has a funny name that gives them a dog, a spacious back yard with luscious green grass and a smiling husband and kids but also has to watch out for side effects like diarrhea, skin rashes, leukemia and even death.

This would look like a really strange place to someone who’s never seen any of it before.

Let’s say this alien’s job was to understand what being “fit” meant to humans, in particular, people in America.

I know you know where I’m going here, but just for a minute try to view this stuff through the lens of totally fresh eyes.

What would you see?

What would you learn?

Using the same sources of readily available information, much of it coming from heavily available advertisements and articles, this alien would soon create an idea in their head that being FIT equals:

being tan skinned
having no visible body fat other than in female breasts and booties (which may or may not be enhanced by implants or injectables)
being tall
usually being caucasian
having well developed and very visible muscles
wearing very little clothing but whatever clothing fit people do have is tight fitting
spending hours upon hours in an enclosed space called a “gym”
eating lots of fruits and vegetables, low fat foods and also powdery substances called “protein shakes”
working so hard that your body cries visible tears (sweat)
demonstrating amazing feats of strength and endurance by completing competitions like marathons, powerlifting, triathlons etc.
moving fast

I’m sure you can think of a few other things that would seem to be typical of a “fit person” in America if viewed through the eyes of an alien. That list is a little tongue in cheek but how much of it do you agree with?

What is being fit? What does it mean to you?

In our real “human” lives we take this same information and internalize it, some of it consciously, and some not so consciously and we kind of develop a similar impression of what it means to be fit.

I have spent many years being frustrated that my body physically didn’t look the way it was “supposed to” despite all the things I did to be “fit”.

I wasn’t the right size, body type or height. My body has and had plenty of visible body fat.

To someone just looking at my outside at most points in my life, and possibly even today, I may not appear fit . . .to them. I know I’m fit regardless of what I may look like to someone else.

Fitness and “being fit” is not a one size fits all definition and it certainly doesn’t have one single look or body type. Being fit doesn’t always look like what we think it looks like.

Here is what being fit means to me.

It is feeling and being strong and capable. Having the energy to do all the things I need to do and not be completely spent afterwards. Or being spent afterwards (sometimes that’s the goal!) but recovering quickly enough to be excited to do it again.

Being fit is being able to carry my snow tires on their rims from my basement to the back of my car without needing to ask anyone for help.

Being fit to me is being able to bike 30 miles on one day and still have the energy to meet up with friends afterwards.

Being fit to me is being able to help a friend move without being totally sore the next day or being sore but not having it destroy me.

Being fit to me is being able to climb several flights of stairs and not be out of breath for very long.

For me, being fit is so much about function than aesthetics.

It’s about feeling powerful, experiencing joy, having good health (something else with more than one definition), pushing oneself and pulling back as needed, and being able to adjust to a change in course.

I’m not planning to ever be a marathon runner or a powerlifter (but props to those who are).

I’m not fast. I’m also not that flexible. And I have some foot injuries that pop up occasionally that slow me down a little and even cause me to modify some things.

However, I also have a lot of strength and endurance that doesn’t quit at the end of a long day.

I know when to rest my body, when to give her the time and care she needs. I know when to push myself and when to back off. I know what I’m capable of, what I’m not and when it’s possible that I might entirely be wrong about myself.

My hard workouts are still hard. Even though I’m physically fit, I get out of breath, muscles cramp, and aches and pains sometimes make me stop before I want to. I sweat. I pant. I get rosy cheeks.

But I’m willing to adapt, modify and change my view if it means being able to continue moving forward, making progress and smashing my own goals. Being fit is accepting where you’re at right now, but also being interested in doing at least one of the following: maintaining, growing, challenging or changing. You decide what, how and how much. You decide what’s enough.

I urge you to question what you believe “being fit” means. If your beliefs about what “fit” looks like don’t match up with what you look like, despite your effort, energy and capabilities, throw it out the window and build your own definition from scratch.

What are you capable of?

What incredible stuff does your body do?

What sort of activity makes you feel incredible? What brings you joy?

What do you wish you were even better at?

Have you gotten my newest free guide You Have What it Takes? If you’re an emotional eater, overeater or longtime dieter who wonders if she has what it takes to change her relationship with food, then this for you. And it’s free. Click on the image below, then enter your name and email and it’s yours!

Getting from Point A to Point Z. (You can’t skip over the points in between).

Leave a reply

Think of changing your habits like purchasing a train ticket to go across the country. Trains get us to and from our destination usually with a lot of stops in between. You may be able to buy an upgrade for a fancier seat or wifi but there’s nothing you can do to get there any faster. Settle in for the ride.

One day you wake up and decide that this is it – you are TIRED of being overweight, of overeating, of making food choices that make you feel awful and you’re going to fix it NOW.

You are rolling with enthusiasm. You want to get started immediately and you want results yesterday. You decide that the only way for you to keep momentum is to go ALL in. You will eat as cleanly as possible, as strictly as possible and work out as hard and as often as you can.

Sounds like a recipe for success, right?

All goes well for a bit. The first couple of days are hard but you know it will get easier as soon as you see results! The scale goes down a bit, but you’re so hungry you can’t stop thinking about food and you don’t really have enough energy to do the workouts that you planned to do.

Pretty soon you are so frustrated that you find yourself ordering a pizza and eating almost the whole thing by yourself. And too bloated the next morning to workout. And too ashamed to eat the light breakfast you planned so you hit a drive-thru on your way to work. And it goes downhill from there.

What started off strong and ambitious, screeched to a halt when the progress you made didn’t match up with your expectations. The effort you were putting in didn’t feel equal to the results you were getting back.

You feel like a failure but you are not a failure, it’s just that the way you went about it failed. There are 1000 ways to do everything and the surefire way to fail at weight loss, changing your relationship with food or any habit change is to go at it with extremes.

When we attack life changes with gusto, a part of us feels like we can get from A to Z faster that way. If we go at it hard, fast and ferociously – totally committed, we’ll have faster results. We think we can skip over B, C, D etc and still make it to Z.

But we can’t do that.

If it took you 10 years to gain 50 lbs, it won’t come off in two weeks. If you are a decade in to an overeating or bingeing struggle, you won’t be able to reverse it in a month. If you’ve been running away from your feelings your entire life, you can’t expect it to be easy after trying it once or twice.

If we want to reach point Z, the end goal . . .we have to be willing to tackle all the steps in between. We have to do the work, all of it. There is no skipping over any of it.

We want to, but we can’t.

Every time we try to go at these changes hard, we’re attempting to skip over some of the hard parts. We know this is true, because our intention is to use whatever momentum and enthusiasm we have in the beginning to propel us forward as fast as possible. Otherwise, there would be no rush. But we know (from past experiences) that our enthusiasm will fizzle when stuff gets hard – and so we think we are doing ourselves a favor by moving quickly in the beginning.

You’ll get no judgement from me on this. I know exactly what that feels like. I can’t tell you how many times I got pumped up researching and planning how I’d lose the weight finally “this time” and how urgent I had to get started. That urge to fix stuff RIGHT NOW. That feeling of disgust that we feel when an item of clothing doesn’t fit the way it should. The way you wish you could snap your fingers and be the person you want to be. It feels overwhelming – like there is a massive, crushing weight holding us back from experiencing life the way we want to.

The reason we feel a crushing weight holding us back is because of our own resistance to feeling things as they unfold. The more we push away and resist, the heavier it feels.

Just like we’re uncomfortable with feeling our uncomfortable feelings in our day to day life, we’re also uncomfortable with change, with being present and with not being in control.

Change is hard. Being present is hard. Not being in control can feel hard if you’re used to holding tightly to it. But if it was all easy, would the reward be as great? Probably not.

If you seriously want to make it from A to Z, take your time. Be patient. Experience each step along the way fully. Resist the urge to rush it.

Habit change takes time and the body takes time to adapt and change. No one goes to the gym once and comes out with a fit body. It takes a long time, a lot of commitment and showing up daily. Why not settle in and make changes in a way that you can sustain long term? Not only are you more likely to make it to your goal (there is nothing to fizzle out when you’re not running on momentum alone) it will also be less painful getting there.

As a side note, something awesome that happens when you submit fully to each step in the process of changing your eating habits is that over time, your daily thoughts become less about your weight, food, and your relationship with it and more about living your life. You start to find yourself choosing food and enjoying it with less drama, less stress. Your weight becomes more stable. Periods of overeating become less frequent and less severe. You judge yourself less. It really does become less of a big deal. So yeah, it takes more time and it’s not sexy going slow, but it’s so much more worth it!

Listen to your intuition. You already know what to eat and that you should get some physical activity regularly. You have the knowledge. You do not need another quick fix or another 21 day weight loss program. What you do need is to learn the lifelong skills and habits you will need to eat the way your body needs you to and practice them. Daily.

I know you can reach your goals. You can lose the weight you’ve put on. You can stop overeating so often. You can have a healthier relationship with food. It doesn’t have to be such a rush.

Will you do all the work it takes day by day?

Can you settle in and not skip over steps along the way?

What can you do today that will gently push you closer to your goal?

What will you do tomorrow to continue moving toward it kindly and sustainably?

Who in your life can support you in making these changes slowly?

Could you use some support in this area? Schedule a free consult with me here.

You can also download a free copy of Healthy Eating Shouldn‘t Be a Workout: Real Life Strategies to Take the Confusion Out of Healthy Living (includes recipes, snack and meal ideas, ways to save money and more!). It’s my starter tool pack for those who want to begin changing their relationship with food. One of the recipes you’ll get in that download is my Mango Mandarin Green Smoothie (below) which is full of Vitamins A & C, potassium and iron. And it’s delicious!

Things That’ll Happen when You Stop Obsessing Over What and How Much to Eat

Leave a reply

This croissant is not “bad” and you are not “bad” if you eat it. It’s just food and eating one of them is not going to alter your body in a significant way. You can enjoy it freely.

Improving your relationship with food is a little bit like cleaning your house. You think you’re making awesome progress and you’ve worked really hard, but every time you turn around there is another pile of junk to deal with! Who put this here? When did I acquire this?? How did this get here?

All joking aside, it might be helpful to think about our food relationships getting “better” as something like a long hike! You may spend some time in valleys and on several peaks. It’s not a straight line from A to B. There might be detours onto a different trail, occasionally it might feel like you are back pedaling (why is this trail going down again, when we’ve been going up for so long!?), there will be some gorgeous views if you’re lucky, but sometimes it’s cloudy out and there won’t be any view – you’ll just have to trust that it’s there. Sometimes it’s all you can do to just keep your eyes on your feet and pray that they keep lifting up off the ground to take another step in front of you. At the end of the day, you’re exhausted, sore and filthy and yet you feel proud of your tenacity and maybe even look forward the next hike.

Improving your relationship with food is a little like hiking - tiring, long and sometimes frustrating but totally worth it.

(Summit of Mt Tecumseh this past weekend) Improving your relationship with food is a little like hiking – tiring, long and sometimes frustrating but totally worth it.

I’ve stumbled a lot along the way. The women I work with have too. Sometimes it feels like you are still at square one. But other times, if we look back at where we were a year ago, 2 years ago, 10 years ago, we can see how much progress we really have made.

One thing I’ve been noticing lately is how different my thoughts around food have gotten. For so very long, it was almost impossible for me to enjoy a meal without first having calculated the calories in it. I’d look at menus before arriving at a restaurant, so that I could factor in what meal would fit in calorically with the other meals that day. Everything had to add up correctly and I would plan and adjust constantly so that it did. It felt like a game that I could never win. When I stopped religiously calorie counting, it was incredibly hard not to do the mental math automatically. I had memorized the calorie count and nutritional details of almost every possible food out there. It’s really hard to “unlearn” that but I’ve made a huge effort to put my mind on the quality of the food I’m eating and learning how to read my hunger and fullness signals. Sometimes I’ve had to essentially “hush” that part of my brain that wants to add up the numbers. A lot at first. But I do that less and less now.

My point is that the less I focus on how much to eat and whether or not I “should” or “shouldn’t” eat something, the more “normal” eating makes sense. By holding on a little less tightly to controlling it all, the hold food has had on me has loosened up too. I let go of what I thought I couldn’t let go of and by doing that, it’s letting go of me too. I’ve been finding myself making choices lately, that may not be the “healthiest” of foods but being able to enjoy them in a reasonable amount – without it turning into a binge, or beating myself up. Enjoying without making it mean anything more.

I’ve been compiling a list of surprising things that have happened along the way as my relationship with food has become easier. Things I wasn’t expecting or I thought wasn’t a big deal until I looked back at where I was originally and could see what a huge deal it really is.

For someone who doesn’t eat emotionally, hasn’t spent their life dieting or bingeing or overeating every night of their lives, this stuff must sound so stupid! But for those of us for whom, food has taken on a larger than life personality, this kind of progress is invaluable.

I feel like I have so much more life, so much more to give and so much more ability to connect with others now since my mind isn’t completely consumed by thoughts about food or my body. That doesn’t mean I don’t have work to do still, but holy crap, I have come so far.

I’m sharing my list with you, in case you want to know how different your life could be if you work on some of these things too. (Check out my Pay What You Can Coaching offer this fall if you’re looking to make some big strides in your own relationship with food).

Things That’ll Happen when You Stop Obsessing Over What and How Much to Eat:

I can fill up my plate at a bbq or other social gathering without spending even 1 second worrying about what everyone else is thinking about what I’m eating. And I can watch others eat without wondering how the heck they can eat what they do and be as thin as they are. Really, I can eat and be present with the people I’m with instead of interacting with both our plates of food.
If I want ice cream, I can eat a big serving of real full fat ice cream and be both satisfied and not have it turn into a downward spiral into binge-land. I don’t have to satisfy my craving with a fat free, fake sugar filled pretend version of the real thing (which only makes me want to eat more and more of it). I want it, I eat it.
That being said, eating what I want and when I want it, now means I want less of the things I thought I always wanted. I thought that if I had certain foods at my fingertips all the time, then I would eat them all the time – but that was only the case when I was telling myself that I couldn’t/shouldn’t eat them. Telling myself it’s ok to eat these things if I really want them strangely enough means I usually don’t even want them or if I do, I can eat a serving or two and be done with it.
Going out to eat I can order whatever I really feel like eating – which might be a salad or baked fish or it might be something really decadent. It used to be about ordering whatever the most indulgent thing on the menu was – since I viewed going out to eat as a time to “cheat” and I usually went overboard.
Not going to bed really full is nice. I am less likely to binge or eat too much because I’m not spending half my week eating as little as I possibly can. I’m able to listen to and eat what my body needs.
A chip is just a chip. A cookie is just a cookie. It’s not the doorway to weighing 400 lbs. A glass of wine does not equal gaining 3 lbs. An extra handful of nuts doesn’t mean I won’t fit into my jeans. It’s not a big deal.
Eating too much is just something that happens occasionally. It is not the end of the world and it no longer ruins my day (or week). I move on instead of wallowing in it.
Eating too little is no longer a badge of honor. I know I need more food to get through the day successfully so I feed my body appropriately – especially as I’ve started to lift heavier weights and go on longer hikes and bike rides. I just can’t do that stuff (and I enjoy it) if I’m not well fueled.
Feeling strong and powerful in my workouts has become the goal and is now way more important than looking skinny or feeling thin. Do I look better because I exercise? Sure. But my size is no longer my focus. It’s barely even in the lens anymore.
I regularly go into my closet and get rid of clothes that no longer fit. I no longer hold onto too tight clothes for the day when I finally fit into it again or onto too big stuff in case I gain weight again. I can live in my present body and not live in hope or fear of the future.
Foods that I used to think tasted amazing actually don’t taste very good upon further inspection. This surprised me a lot! The texture of store bought frosting leaves a disgusting greasy residue in my mouth. Foods with artificial sweeteners taste too sweet and generally “off”. Cheez-its don’t really taste cheesy to me anymore.
My weight is more stable. I go up and down a few pounds normally. No massive ups and massive downs. I know if I end up on the scale my weight will be somewhere in an 8 lb range (constipation, PMS, normal body fluctuations are much of that). As long as I don’t see anything way over or under that, I know I’m eating the right amount for my body. Having this data, while triggering for some, actually helps reinforce that what I’m doing is working for me right now. I know I can trust my body, because things are balancing out on their own.

What do you think? Can you relate to any of these? What has been the most surprising benefit for you as you’ve made progress on your own eating concerns? What habits and changes have been the most helpful?

Two Tips to Building Body Confidence

Leave a reply

Body confidence doesn’t come from what you look like. It’s how we use our bodies and what we do with our thoughts that make the biggest difference.

There was a time when I thought my lack of body confidence came from being overweight. I remember thinking (on every diet) that things were going to be so much better when I was thin. I thought I’d suddenly have the confidence to do things I’d never tried before, I thought I wouldn’t self-conscious or awkward anymore. Every piece of clothing I’d put on would look amazing and I’d never have a zit again.

Haha.

It wasn’t realistic at all, but if you’ve ever spent a good chunk of your life moderately overweight you may have had similar delusions!

I made it to “thin” around 2006 and let me tell you, all the body image issues I had when I was a size 16 were still there when I was wearing a size 4. In some ways, they felt magnified. I still saw myself as a large person. I’d look in the mirror and see so much more that needed to be worked on. (See the poor quality black & white photos below.) My skin was now “loose” and appeared “flabbier”. My stretch marks, while faded, were almost more visible. It was so hard to appreciate what I had because it looked different than the perfect image I had created in my head. I picked and tore apart my body on a daily basis – always finding something wrong with it.

My weight has gone up and down drastically several times since 2006 and I’ve learned a few things each time but probably the most glaringly obvious thing is that body confidence has nothing to do with your size or shape. It has nothing to do with your weight.

Attempting to take body “progress” pictures back in 2007. I weighed about 139 lbs here but still felt bad about my body.

You can be heavy and have confidence in your body. You can be thin and have confidence in your body. Your body can still be a work in progress and you can still feel confident in it. You can also accept your body as it is right now and feel confident. It’s not dependent on what the scale says.

There are 2 things I do now that have made the biggest difference in my body confidence – regardless of the current size of my body. One of those things is moving my body in ways that I love and the other is to stop paying attention to negative thoughts about my body. I’ll go into more detail about each of those below. I hope you’ll try these in your own life!

Move your body in ways that you love.

I remember spending hours and hours on the elliptical at the gym, bored out of my mind and barely working hard enough to raise my heart rate. It was hard to keep myself going when I didn’t enjoy what I was doing and also I wasn’t really seeing any changes in my body. Exercise is so much easier to do when you find things that you love doing! Take a dance class, try CrossFit, barre classes, start a walking group in your neighborhood, join a hiking group on meetup.com. If you have an internet connection, all it takes is a quick search to find free exercise videos you can try from the comfort of your living room. You don’t have to go to a gym if that doesn’t excite or motivate you. When you find movement, exercise or activity (we can call it whatever you want) that is fun and challenging, you’ll want to do it.

I’ve found that I love barre classes for how graceful they make me feel and because they strengthen my core without having to spend hours on my back doing crunches. I love riding my bike because it’s a little bit like flying and I enjoy the wind on my face (perhaps I was a dog in a past life). I love seeing how far I can travel in a short amount of time and love knowing that it’s all powered by my strong legs. I love strength training with heavy weight because it makes me feel strong, powerful and like I could kick anyone’s ass.

Lately, John and I have been spending some of our free time hiking and while it’s challenging, I’m always amazed how much better my body handles it at 38 years old and 158 lbs than it did when I was 23 and 220 lbs. Yesterday I tackled a hill on a bike ride that used to kill me – even a few years ago I dreaded it every time – so much so that I sometimes thought about doing a different route so I could avoid the hill (hills are not my favorite) but I blew up this hill yesterday like it was nothing!! I couldn’t believe how easy it was for my body now and it felt great.

John and I moving our bodies in ways we love (despite what the look on his face says).

I get my body confidence now from what my body can DO. It is no longer dependent on what it looks like. Yes, doing all these activities definitely changes how my body looks (I thank barre for my smoother inner thighs and weight lifting for my shoulder/bicep definition) but it’s not the sole reason I do them. It’s not even the most important reason. I get a major thrill in being able to do things physically that might have previously been out of reach for me.

I can do a chin up from a hanging position. YES! Just a few months ago I was excited that I could do most of one as long as I jumped up the first 1/3 of the way. Now I can do one without that boost! Holy crap, I never thought that would happen. This is MY amazing body and it’s strong.

I can carry a ton of grocery bags from the car through my garage and basement and up the stairs into the house and not be winded and do it again and again.

I’m thankful that my body can do these things (and aware that my health allows the possibility). I get excited to challenge it in new ways. How can I not be confident in this vehicle which allows me to travel everywhere I want to be and do everything I want to do? How can I not feel good in it? Why would allow myself to feel anything other than awe, appreciation and love towards it? When I do physical stuff that I love doing, it makes it far easier to love my body. Seriously, it’s the BEST.

There’s a great side effect that comes from focusing on what my body is capable of and not what it looks like. I couldn’t do the things I do if I wasn’t eating properly. If I don’t eat enough, I won’t be able to complete my strength workout. If I don’t eat a good balance of protein and carbs, I won’t be able to bike 20 or 30 miles. If I eat crappy today, I won’t feel so hot on our hike tomorrow. Focusing on the amazing things my body can do and what I want it to be able to do makes eating well so much easier. And eating well means I have less bloating, less insane cravings and my clothes fit better.

Notice how much you think about what your body looks like and then stop doing that.

How many times a day do you mentally criticize it?

How long does it take you to find something to wear each day that doesn’t make you think terrible thoughts about yourself?

How much are negative words directed towards your body a regular part of your routine?

When I say “stop doing that”, I know some of you are rolling your eyes at me. “It’s not that easy Andrea!”. I know it’s not. It’s not easy to stop doing it if you think there is nothing you can do about it. This is just the way you are, right?

I’ve said it 1000 times and I’m going to keep saying it until we all feel empowered with this idea: We don’t have control over the thoughts that pop into our heads but we DO have control over what we do with those thoughts. If a thought about our thighs, our belly, our stretch marks appears, we can either go look for evidence that the thought is true or we can choose to ignore that thought and move about our day.

Yes, you CAN ignore these negative thoughts about yourself. Think of these thoughts as a heckler in a crowd you are performing in front of (as a comedian, an actor, whatever). You can choose to listen to the heckler and let him affect your performance, you can choose to engage with the heckler and give him the attention he’s after and again distract and affect your performance OR you can ignore the guy and do your thing. You could even ask him to leave! Have him escorted out – it’s your show!

We don’t have to indulge or engage with the heckler. Those negative thoughts you have about your body are hecklers. Don’t give them extra attention. The less you pay attention to those kinds of thoughts, the less loud they will get and soon you’ll find yourself “performing” at your very best. Totally focused, prepared and unable to be flustered by any thought that shows up.

Not engaging with these thoughts does take practice. It’s a matter of noticing when they happen and then paying attention to what you do with the thought. At first you’ll think that you aren’t doing anything with those negative thoughts – the engagement and indulging of them has become an automatic habit and just like any other habit, it takes effort to break. When a thought appears, like “Ug, my stomach looks so disgusting in this shirt!” pretend it’s one of those choose your own adventure books you had as a kid (those were the best!!!). Which path are you going to choose? And where do you think you might end up?

I’ll give you another analogy (since I love them). The obnoxious political posts on social media. You’re scrolling through and read a post from one of your relatives spouting insanely ignorant and divisive rhetoric. It infuriates you. In fact, you feel anger bubbling up in you as soon as you read it. You can A) Start typing furiously away, blasting their post with counting facts one by one or B) You can continue scrolling by without responding (or even “hide” the person and their posts so you don’t have to see it again). The first time you choose B and don’t respond, you might feel bad. You might keep thinking about it and wanting to go back and say something. You may even find yourself venting to someone in your real life about the post or the person. But if you ignore this kind of stuff again and again and stop responding to it, you’ll find that it becomes easier to do with time. My facebook is a whole mess of obnoxious posts from people with different beliefs that me and I just don’t engage anymore (because it’s healthier for me). I used to get into lots of arguments with people online – I felt like I couldn’t NOT say something. Now it’s easy to just move on. You can do the same thing with negative thoughts about your body.

The cool thing that happens when you stop getting down and dirty with those negative thoughts about your body is that you realize you don’t even need to replace the negative thought with positive thoughts. You don’t have to do affirmations if those don’t speak to you. You don’t have to write love letters to your hated parts (though it won’t hurt!). By ignoring the negative stuff, neutral becomes the norm. Your body becomes your body, a vehicle to use to live your life and not something that warrants consideration for how it looks. Aren’t you just glad your car starts in the morning and gets you safely where you need to be? It doesn’t matter if there is a little rust on it or some bug guts squished on the window – it’s purpose in life isn’t to be shiny and pretty and perfect. It’s purpose is to take you from A to B safely.

That’s it for today. Two ways I’ve built up my body confidence that have nothing to do with dieting, losing weight or being thin. What makes you feel confident in your body? What is your favorite thing about what your body can do?

Like this? For more, download your free copy of Healthy Eating Shouldn‘t Be a Workout: Real Life Strategies to Take the Confusion Out of Healthy Living (includes recipes, snack and meal ideas, ways to save money and more!).

You Have To Do The Work (Or Why You Don’t Need to Read Another Book, Take Another Course or Do More Research).

Leave a reply

You already know what you need to know to get started. Don’t fall into the trap of believing there must be easier or better answers out there. Start taking action on what you already know now.

When I was first training to be a coach, I had this overwhelming feeling that I didn’t know enough. No matter how many lectures I listened to, worksheets completed, books read and coaching demos watched, this feeling kept coming back. How can I be ready to do this work? There’s no way I know what I’m doing. I’ve got to learn more before I begin. Maybe this book or course has the answer. Maybe I need to read a few more blogs on the subject.

What my coaching school told us over and over (it was a common complaint and fear of students), and what I learned to be true afterwards, is that the only way you get good at this work (or anything) is by doing it. The only way you “know” enough is by going out and doing it.

Knowing something intellectually is not the same as knowing something spiritually or in your core. You can consume all the information available in the world. You can read every book, buy every online course and you’ll still feel just as unprepared as you did on day 1 if you don’t actually go out and do the real-life work.

I had to take everything I learned in school, from books and lectures and apply it in actual coaching conversations before any of it made sense – before I felt confidence in what I had set out to do. In order to become a skilled coach (and to feel like a coach), I had to actually coach!

The same can be said for repairing your relationship with food, with losing weight or getting fit. Really, it can be said about anything new we want to do or create in our lives. You can spend hours upon hours of your time learning about what diet to try, what exercises to do, what mental habits you need to learn and none of it will get you where you want to be unless you actually go out, buy the food, prepare it, eat it, go out and do the exercises in your workout plan several days a week and practice all the mental tools to change your thinking. The key to reaching any goal (as I have preached on and on about before) is taking the physical steps and actions to get there.

One of the biggest complaints I hear from people is that x, y, and z isn’t working for them and so they ask me to give them something else that will work. “What else can I try?” they ask. Let’s say X is mindful or intuitive eating. Y is eating whole foods most of the time. Z is feeling their feelings instead of eating them. When someone tells me any of these things, my first instinct is to play sleuth before handing them more information. I have to find out what “not working” means. I don’t doubt that whatever they are doing isn’t working (if it was, this complaint wouldn’t be so prevalent) but I have to question what mindful eating, whole foods or feeling their feelings looks like in their reality.

How are they applying it in their daily life?

What does each meal look like?

How many times did they feel an uncomfortable feeling today and what did they do?

How long did it last?

In reality, most people who learn about mindful eating think that just being 50% mindful three meals a week is enough to say they tried mindful eating and it didn’t work for them. People who say eating whole foods didn’t work for them think that eating a salad one day and steamed broccoli on another cancels out the 3 trips to McDonald’s and the 3 pints of ice cream they ate this week. People who are supposed to be focusing on feeling their feelings instead of eating them, feel an uncomfortable feeling once or twice and run for the hills (and usually into the pantry).

Trying something once, twice or partially 10 times is not enough.

It’s half-assed and it’s not doing it.

Feeling your feelings regularly is something that takes a lot of time and effort. We have to continuously bring our minds back to our discomfort and be able to sit with it until the feeling dissipates. The same goes with mindful eating. If you want that to work for you, you really have to make mindful eating something you do at every meal, with every bite.

We think that just by knowing something, it will be enough to help us make changes. Knowing the why’s and the hows is a big part of making changes but it’s just a blueprint. You’re the architect. You still have to oversee the actual building of the building. You have to go out and buy supplies like wood and power tools. You have to hire a team to help you build it. You have to get permits and deal with bureaucratic BS. You may even have to physically pick up a hammer and nail a lot of boards together. Not just once. Over and over until what you build looks like the blueprint. You don’t give up on day 1 because the hardware store didn’t have the brand of nails you like. You don’t give up on day 2 because a contractor was late. You might need to adjust your schedule or change your plan of attack but you do what you have to do to complete the project. Just knowing how something can and should be built isn’t the same as actually getting it built. It’s the same with repairing your relationship with food.

You do not need another book. You don’t need another course. You don’t need to go to another workshop. You have to settle in with what you already know and use it.

If you do this, try to learn everything you can, but don’t actually put it into action, don’t feel badly. You’re not alone. We all do this. We all have a lot on our plates and we try to just skip over the parts of our healing process that we find difficult or confusing or uncomfortable.

Instead of hunkering down and immersing ourselves in the physical process of change (like letting uncomfortable feelings be, prepping healthy food for every meal, returning our focus to our meals each time our brain wants to go somewhere else etc) we attempt spiritual bypass. We learn all we can and then think that means we can skip over the meaty parts because we have the intellectual knowledge.

The problem with this is that we end up really still being in the same place. We just think we’ve moved past something when really all we’ve done is checked out in the part of our journey where it gets hard. Stop checking out. Check “in” instead and apply what you already know.

If you see yourself doing this, here are a few questions to ask yourself:

What is it that you want?
What actions are you taking towards that goal?
What have you tried that has not worked?
How much effort did you put into the things that you feel did not work?
How much of your time and energy do you spend reading, learning, consuming new or more material on the subject you want to change? (Are you always buying another book on the same subject? Always following a new guru on social media? Do you buy courses online but then look to buy another before completing the work they ask of you?
What is something you know you must do to reach your goal but are having difficulty taking the first step on?
Why do you think you haven’t taken that step?
What would make taking that step easier? Who could support you? How can you support yourself?
If you already knew everything there was to know about your subject or goal, what 3 things do you think you could start doing today that would move you closer to reaching that goal?

If you are struggling in translating your knowledge into action with emotional eating, chronic dieting or overeating, let’s talk. Coaching is an amazing tool for exactly that kind of transformation and I’d love to be of service to you.

Forget Willpower, Instead Learn to Strengthen Your Self-Control

Leave a reply

You don’t need lots of willpower to resist that 2nd piece of cake. You just need to utilize self-control that you already have.

I’ve lost dozens and dozens of pounds, dozens of times (because I’ve also gained dozens of pounds multiple times). Each time I lose a noticeable amount of weight I start hearing the same thing over and over from well meaning folks: “I wish I had your willpower.”

Saying no to cake at all the office birthday parties: “You have so much willpower!”

Not eating pizza at a family gathering. blah blah blah willpower.

Passing on the bread at a restaurant. blah blah blah willpower.

Getting a good sweat on almost every day of the week. blah blah blah so much willpower.

Honestly, I don’t think I have willpower. What I do have and what I practice is using and strengthening my self-control.

Frankly, I’m not a fan of the word willpower because most of us give it too much power. We give it control over whether or not we take good care of ourselves.

We think about it as something we have a certain amount of and when it’s gone or used up, we are unable to control ourselves. We hand over our personal power and wipe our hands of responsibility and pretend as if this internal willpower is outside of us.

Think about this for a second.

Willpower and Self-Control are the Same Thing but We Think About Them Differently and That’s Part of the Problem

What sorts of things do you use “willpower” for?

We use it to resist eating foods that will keepus from reaching our body goals, we use it to not pick up a drink or cigarette when we’re trying to quit or cut back. And some of us use it when talking about romantic partners. Ever met someone you knew wasn’t good for you but you felt pulled towards? We all have. You’ve probably said “I just can’t resist him (or her), I have no willpower!”

Willpower is really just another word for self-control. But we think about them a bit differently. Self-control is always in your back pocket and you can exercise it to make it stronger. Willpower sounds like something magical and limited. Willpower will disappear on you, in an instant if the right circumstances present themselves. Self-control on the other hand, is always under the surface. You can always choose to utilize it.

You have tons of self-control.

I know you do.

Even if we’ve never met, I know you have self-control.

How do I know this?

You don’t run into the street when a car is coming. You brush your teeth each day even when you are tired. You get up and go to work each day, even when you really don’t feel like it. You pay your bills, even though you’d love to spend the money on something fun. You don’t eat cake for every meal even though you could. You don’t punch people in the face when they irritate you. You watch your language when around small children (or try to anyway). You urinate in toilets in private, rather than peeing on the floor when the urge arrises.

These are all examples of self-control. And self-control is, on some level, something we can learn and improve our mastery of.

Self-Control is Something That Can Be Strengthened

In other words, somewhere along the way, you learned to take certain actions in order to create certain outcomes in your world. Toddlers run into the street because they haven’t learned that it’s dangerous yet. People who want to feel secure in their life pay their bills and don’t throw wayward fists.

You never needed “willpower” to brush your teeth. No one would ever look at you brushing your teeth and say “Wow, look at the willpower on you!”. They would sound crazy. Your parents taught you to brush your teeth and while for most of us it took a certain amount of encouragement, cajoling or even force for it to become a daily habit, it happened because they took daily action with you until it just became something you did automatically.

Self-control gets stronger with use. Take daily action. Repetition. Decisions. Routines. Habits. Discipline. Resolve. Practice.

Toss out your image of “willpower” and exert your already existing self-control. This is how we stop feeling weak and turn it into ironclad strength that we can use anytime, anyplace.

Practice Makes us Perfect at Whatever we “Practice”

Here’s another way to think about this. Whatever we do lots of, we get really good at. An action or thought becomes easy, becomes a part of us. We become skilled at it. When we do something repeatedly, we are “practicing” something. And practice essentially makes us “perfect” at it.

For example:

If we study a subject and work daily at it – we’ll be knowledgeable in that area. (practice learning)
If we play guitar every day for a year, at the end of the year we’re going to be way better than we were in the beginning. (practice guitar)
Babies learning to walk, crawl and take steps and fall down and get up again, and again until one day they are very steady on their feet. (practice walking)
A student taking driver’s ed is a better driver at their 12th driving hour than they were their 1st time at the wheel. (practice driving)
Someone who begins an exercise program today and commits to 30 minutes a day will be much fitter and stronger after 6 months than they were on day 1. (practice exercising)
A person who puts in time and effort to shop for and prepare healthy food will do it faster and more efficiently after they’ve been doing it every day for 6 weeks. (practice food prep)

Those all make sense, right? We understand the value of how actively practicing something can form and change us.

But what about what we actively don’t do? Or things we’re doing but are unaware of and don’t want to do!? We get good at “not doing” stuff too.

More fun examples:

If you never exercise you’re getting really good at the habit of not exercising. (not exercising is what you practice)
Someone who repeatedly thinks negative things about their body is learning how to hate their body. (practice hating their body)
People who don’t speak up for themselves get good at keeping quiet. (practice not speaking up)
If we go home every night and eat everything in the kitchen – we’re getting really good at eating everything in the kitchen. (practice overeating)
A person who blames others for their life, learns how to not take responsibility. (practice blaming)

Doing something over and over (or not doing it over and over) creates and reinforces habits. If you are “practicing” something that isn’t helping you get the life you want, you’re going to have to start actively practicing things that do.

This will take time.

Just like a baby learning to walk or someone learning to drive, it’ll be hard at first. You’ll fall down, you’ll brake too hard and you’ll occasionally revert to the old habits you were practicing. But if you keep practicing this new thing, eventually you’ll be good at it too!

The reason we feel like we don’t have enough willpower to “resist” the cake or pass on the pizza is because we have created the habit of frequently having the cake or pizza. We don’t have the willpower to not lay on the couch after work, because we have repetitively laid on the couch after work. We’re amazing at laying on the couch. We could win awards at this couch thing.

If we want to change this, we are going to have to actively work hard at it, at least until it becomes our new normal. Our brains want to do the easy thing, they want to be efficient – and doing anything new, whether it be working out or even just driving a car for the first time, it’s going to take a lot of effort and concentration to get yourself there.

This isn’t a bad thing. This is good. This means YOU have it in you to change it.

If it’s just up to our idea of “willpower” we’re going to fail because it’s limited. But your self-control (the same thing but we think differently about it) is flexible, malleable and can be used like a muscle that gets stronger with each use.

You have to make the decision that you want to be more fit more than you want the snacks, eating out etc. You have to make the choice that you’re going to work your body each day even if you don’t really feel like it. You have to prepare healthy foods that fuel your body daily, not just once in awhile.

Use Self-Control daily with one Choice. One Step. One Action.

Applying self-control to your life is no different than going after a new job or going back to school for a career change. No one would ever say you did those things because you had willpower. You did those things because you worked hard, took daily action, created good habits. You wanted them. You did all of those things because you have amaze-balls self-control that you use regularly. And guess what it all started with? One choice. One step. One action. And then repetition of those steps. Over and over.

You have to choose to use your self-control for yourself, which will include making daily decisions that will seem difficult at first (choosing more vegetables, choosing to walk more, choosing to pass on dessert etc) but that will eventually become your new normal, it will be easier and more automatic. No one can do it for you and no one can share their “willpower” with you. You can’t avoid the hard spots between where you are right now and where you want to be. You have to accept that there is going to be some struggle as you get going – but isn’t what’s on the other side worth it?

Remember that whatever you’re not good at doing right now, whether it’s just getting out the door for a walk 5 days in a row or eating more green vegetables, you’re only going to get “good” at it by doing it over and over and reinforcing the habit. I never thought I’d be writing a blog post every week, but here I am, writing blog posts week after week. It all started with me deciding that that was what I was going to do and then going step by step to get there. Now it’s my normal. Your hard today can be your normal 6 months from now.

A few questions for thought:

What do you wish you had more “willpower” to do?

What are you currently “practicing” that you want to continue doing?

What are you “practicing” that you want to stop doing?

What is something you can do tomorrow towards one of your goals that you can commit to repeating for 30 days?

What if We Focused on What We Want as Much as We Focus on What We Don’t Want?

Leave a reply

Notice how much attention you give to thoughts about what you don’t want or don’t like about your life. What might happen if you turned things around?

A few years ago, I walked into my job after a long weekend and gave my notice. I had spent the previous 6 months dreading almost every day, not sleeping and finding myself in tears both at work and at home, way way more than normal. I just couldn’t do it anymore.

Looking back at it now, I wish I had spent my energy differently during those last 6 months there. I was so unhappy (managerial changes, layoffs etc) and so vested in my own misery that I couldn’t see anything other than my own unhappiness. It was like this massive grey cloud that obstructed my senses, so thick and impenetrable, I walked around with it held out in front of me, assuming that the grey cloud I saw everywhere was confirmation that everyone around me at work was also miserable. Some of them had their own clouds for sure (it was an ugly year for the company), but I was coloring my entire world with the way I had chosen to think about my situation. And I thought that the second I walked out those doors that that grey cloud would be gone forever.

When I embarked upon starting my own business, those same grey clouds would appear every so often, not as dark and thick as before, but certainly enough to make me question what I was doing (do I know enough? am I good at this? was I insane to quit?? etc). I realized that my situation wasn’t fully to blame for my unhappiness – a huge chunk of it was because of how much time I spent thinking about how bad things were at work. I was basically growing my unhappiness by cultivating thoughts about how deeply unhappy I was, all day long, over and over – with every interaction I had.

I am not unique (though I’d like to think I am, haha!).

Most of us spend big chunks of time focusing on what we don’t want in our current situation. It’s easier to think about what’s not going well, what we don’t want, or how we don’t want things to be.

Maybe it’s your job that you hate. You get up each morning, dreading the day ahead. Even going to sleep is challenging because you are thinking about how much you don’t want to go to work tomorrow. How much of your day (or night) is spent thinking about how much you don’t want to be where you spend most of your day?

Maybe it’s your weight. You weigh yourself first thing in the morning and feel instant disappointment. You’re still fat! (side note: your weight is not indicative of how awesome you are and you don’t need to change it.) You go to get dressed and have a meltdown just going into the closet. You know most of what’s in here doesn’t fit your “chubby” body. You take one last look in the mirror before you leave the house and wonder how you let yourself get this heavy? How much of your day is filled with thoughts about what is wrong about your body?

Maybe it’s where you are living. It’s too far of a commute to work. It’s too far in the woods. Your house is too big. It’s too small. You don’t like how it’s decorated. You don’t want to stay there but don’t want to deal with a move either. How much of your day do you dedicate to thinking about where you don’t want to be?

Maybe it’s the people you spend time with. Your husband annoys you or he’s not emotionally available. Your friends aren’t available enough or you have that one friend who is too available and you need more space. Your family is too nosy or they’re too distant. How much time do you spend thinking you’d rather be with someone other than the person or people you are currently with?

Maybe it’s your car. It needs some work or it’s too expensive.

Maybe it’s your local grocery store. They don’t carry the brands you like or they do, but it’s always too crowded.

Maybe it’s how you spend your free time. What free time? Or too much free time?

I think that’s probably enough examples to illustrate the point. We spend a ton of our thinking time in thoughts about what about our lives is “wrong” or “too much” or not “enough”.

How many times has doing that actually changed your situation?

Does a new job materialize when you spend all day stewing over how miserable you are?

Do you suddenly start to love your body after you’ve assaulted it with the 8th “You’re wrong in ______ way” message in one day?

Does your unhappiness in your current home help you find your dream home in your dream town?

No. None of these thoughts about what we don’t want in our current lives serves to bring us what we do want. Sure, some of us can argue that if we’re happy, we’re unlikely to make changes – and that a glimmer of dissatisfaction can be what sparks motivation to change. But there’s a difference between wanting more in life and finding all that is wrong in it.

If anything, spending too much time in these thoughts about what we don’t want, can make us feel even more down, even more stuck, even more unhappy and less likely to take steps towards changing our situation.

What do you think would happen if we spent more time thinking about what we do want in our lives, where we want to be, what we want to create and who we want to be? What might happen if we spent time thinking about all the things that are right in our world?

When we put our focus on the things we do want in our lives, it makes us feel gratitude, appreciation, love and even joy. When we feel more of those things, we take actions that bring us more of what we want and it can cultivate more patience, tolerance and even appreciation in the areas that we do want to change.

How do we get there? How do we stop thinking so much about what we don’t want?

Here are two exercises that can help turn your thinking around (you’ll need paper and pen or pencil for this):

Think about a time when you felt super pumped up, ready to create something new, go after something big or otherwise make major changes. What was going on in your life? What were you thinking about? Who with, and how were you spending your time? Write down the thoughts that you recall made you feel the most motivated. What thoughts in your current life are most like those thoughts? How can you have more of them?
Each morning or evening (whichever is more convenient for you) write down 5 things in your life that you already have that you want. We spend a ton of time thinking about the things in life that we want but that we don’t yet have. That creates feelings of drought, lack – scarcity! I’m asking you to spend some time creating desire for the things you already have. What do you have in life that you truly want? Try to list 5 different things each day, even if it’s a variation on something you’ve listed before.

For exercise #2, here are a few examples from my own life: I want my husband and I want to be married to him. I want fulfilling and meaningful work. I want my sweet cat. I want my empathy and my sense of humor.

It may seem silly to list out things that seem obvious that we have that we “want” – and it’s certainly way easier to come up with a list of things we don’t want! There are some days I get stuck in thinking about how I’m tired of living so far away in the woods or that as much as I love the freedom of working from home, it gets lonely and I feel like I’ve gotten extra socially awkward since I started (haha!) but while those things are true – there are not the only “truth” in my life. There are plenty of things in my life that I do want – exactly as they already are.

We think of “wanting” as something we do when we are going without. But wanting is also desiring what we have already and even if there are things in your life that you don’t like and do want to change, I am sure there are things that you are blessed with that you do want and you do desire. Putting your focus on those can help get us out of focusing on the stuff we don’t want – and it will release our energy to be able to be put to use doing something more constructive.

One area that this has really made an impact on for me is my relationship with my body. Someone asked me recently how I made a switch from such a negative body image to a more positive one and one of the things I shared with her was that I indulged thoughts about what my body could do more than I indulged the thoughts about what my body was lacking (in my opinion). Both types of thoughts pop in my head and there’s no controlling what thoughts we have – but we do have control over what we do with those thoughts. I started to put more energy (intentionally) into thinking about all the amazing things my body does for me every single day – breathing, heart beating, feet supporting me when I want to take a step, every muscle, bone, tendon, ligament, organ and everything else in my body serving a function every day that enables me to do really cool things. Being able to ride a bike, take barre classes, walk, run, jump, lift weights, carry groceries, think, cook, love etc. (This doesn’t mean that if someone is not able to do these things that they should not take the same joy in their body. I think we should celebrate what we can do even if it doesn’t look like what another person can do.)

My whole life is possible because of the body I’m in and all that she does, every day for me.

Doesn’t that deserve more attention than what is “wrong” about it?

It does and so I started putting more energy there. And the cool thing about that is that it fuels my decisions about what to eat or what kind of exercise I do that is more supportive of a body I love (rather than as a way to punish my body). I put more focus on what I do want about my body than what I don’t want – and that has revolutionized my relationship with her.

In the same way, we can revolutionize our entire life with how we direct our thinking. What if we focused on what we want as much as we focus on what we don’t want?

That’s not to say that if you’re unhappy in your job, your marriage, your lifestyle, your health etc that you should just ignore it and focus on the happy stuff. I’m not suggesting sweeping anything under the rug. I’m just suggesting that we put in an equal amount of time and energy thinking about the stuff in life that we do want as we spend thinking about the stuff we’d like to change.

This is your life and you get to make of it what you want – so do it!

15 Life Lessons to Learn for More Peace in Your Life

Leave a reply

Life Lessons I’m not going to wax poetic about food or weight loss this week.

Nope! Instead I’m going to share with you some essential lessons that I have found invaluable! Some of these you will have heard before (you may have learned them yourself) and others I frankly just made up and incorporated into my belief system (#10 is one of those) from personal experiences but I hope you’ll read on to see if some of these are things you need to learn too.

One of the many things that directed me towards a career in coaching was that life lessons kept hitting me in the square in the face and once I got over my initial resistance to accepting those lessons, I became interested in how I could use them to my lifelong benefit. Like most people “growing up” in their 20’s and early 30’s, things I thought I believed strongly would be called in to question, again and again by challenges and disasters I would find myself up against. I was certainly opposed to accepting some of these lessons for a long time, but once I did, their effect on me has been immeasurable. Life frequently forces us to learn lessons, through conflicts, tragedies, obstacles, and we can choose to ignore them (only to have them show up again and again until we learn what is needed) or we can choose to see what it is trying to teach us.

A lot of my coaching practice has nothing to do with food, nutrition or the physical side of our health. My favorite part of health coaching is the “life” coaching part because physical transformation cannot happen without some emotional and spiritual transformation. A truly well person, especially one who hopes to have an improved relationship with food, needs to learn how to manage their thoughts and emotions in a responsible way. To do that, we have to learn to separate out what is actual truth, from the old stories and beliefs we keep telling ourselves, from what is actually in our personal control vs. what is out of our reach, and what actions, behaviors and beliefs are keeping us down, vs. lifting us up. The most important life lessons are the ones that help us do this and in doing so, allow us to live more peacefully, both with ourselves and with others.

I sometimes wish someone had given me a primer of some of the lessons that were coming my way. I would have still struggled, that’s an unavoidable part of growth but maybe it would have been less stressful? Easier in some way? Probably not, haha! Today’s post is my attempt to give that to you!

Below are 15 of the life lessons I’ve learned so far (some serious and some silly!) that have brought me more peace, happiness and confidence in living my life. Knowing (and living by) some of these “truths” makes it a lot easier to make decisions, more accepting of when things don’t go the way I want them to and makes my relationships less tumultuous.

15 Life Lessons to Learn for More Peace in Your Life

1. Stop trying to change other people’s opinions, actions or feelings. The only person you can control is you. It will save you years of frustration, pain and strained relationships if you can accept this. Really. You can’t change how someone else thinks, feels or what actions they take. You can’t control what they say. You can’t do anything about how they live their life. You can’t change their opinion of you (and it’s none of your business anyhow). But you can control how much you allow someone to affect you. You can control how much you allow them in your life. You can control your thoughts about the person and how much energy and time you give to them. You are in charge of you (no one else). And no one has a right to try to change you. If someone tries to control what you wear, who you talk to or what you can do, they’re stepping out of line. You are not obligated to follow someone else’s expectations of you. You manage you and they manage them. To read more about this, I blogged about this last year.

2. Forgive and “let go” of past hurts/wrongs done to you or by you. For some reason we think that holding on to the pain and the story of our past pains is the only safe thing to do. We think that if we let go of it or forgive someone that it means they’re off the hook or that we’re invalidating our painful experience. You don’t have to be “over” it, but it only hurts you further to direct negative energy towards the other person or yourself over the long term. Forgiving and letting go is for YOU. No one has to know that you’ve forgiven them. You are welcome to keep it all to yourself! You don’t have to wait for an apology from someone to feel forgiveness for the past. There is healing (for you!) in deciding to no longer allow that pain to color every aspect of your life – and only you have the power to do that.

3. We all have an inner critic who tells us (to varying degrees) that we’re not good enough, we look fat, we’re awkward (or whatever). You don’t have to listen to it. Just because it’s there, doesn’t mean it’s true. Ultimately, that inner critic is trying to protect you from getting hurt in some way, but they go about it the wrong way. For example, when that inner voice tells you that “you’re not good enough to sing on stage” or “you’re going to embarrass yourself by signing up for a 5k”, it’s the part of you that wants you to play small so that you don’t get hurt. If we go after what our hearts truly want (maybe a singing career or winning a race), we do risk failure. We risk embarrassment. We risk falling flat on our faces. But the inner mean critic doesn’t have any more information than you do. She can’t predict the future. She isn’t automatically speaking the truth. The key to not letting her get to you is to acknowledge that this critic is trying to help and that we don’t have to listen to her.

4. Take responsibility for your feelings. No one can hurt your feelings but us. Really. It’s the meaning we take from someone’s actions or words that cause us pain. It’s the way we are thinking about it. This one took me a long time to learn because ultimately I wanted other people to not be jerks (right?!), but it’s empowering knowing I’m in charge of how I feeling. It’s not a blame game – just because you’re not blaming someone else for how you feel, doesn’t mean you’re to “blame”. It’s not about that. It’s about not giving your power away which is exactly what we do when we blame someone else for how we feel. When you recognize that you are responsible for your feelings, you have the power to feel better now.

5. Your past is just your past. It’s not a glimpse into your future. Just because you’ve always struggled with your weight, your body, with food etc doesn’t mean it will always be a struggle or it will stay a struggle. You can change it. Believing that something is impossible makes it so. You know that humans are adaptable and intelligent so why not believe that about yourself also? Same with events or actions that occurred in your past. They are not happening in the present and you don’t have to repeat it over and over just because it’s a part of your history.

6. Use physical hunger as a judge as to whether you should eat or not. Not the amount of calories you’ve computed, not whether the scale read the right number today or not because you think you shouldn’t eat. If you’re worried that your physical hunger will lead to weight gain, you probably aren’t in touch with it (it’s ok, most of us are rusty) and are eating driven by cravings, emotions or something else. Learning to listen to your body signals – what hunger feels like, what being satisfied feels like etc is an incredibly valuable skill to have. If you can get in touch with this, you’ll always know when to eat and when to stop. Weight issues solved.

7. If you’re not getting the results you want from whatever life changes you are trying to make, ask yourself, how committed am I to making the changes? How much effort am I truly putting in? If you’re only putting in 50% effort, expect your results to reflect that. We can think all we want about how we want something to change. We can say out loud that we want something so badly. We can read all the books and listen to all the podcasts hoping to learn all we can about something, but if we don’t actually apply what we’ve learned to the thing we’re trying to change, it’s not going to do anything. You want results? Then you’ve got to take action.

8. If you’re sensitive – own it, be proud of it, pay attention to it. I remember getting teased in elementary school for blushing when called on to give an answer (or really any time attention was on me). I got made fun of in my own household by family members growing up for crying in response to anger or frustration. For a long time, I saw my sensitivity as a burden and an obvious sign that there was something wrong with me. But being sensitive is what makes me an empathetic coach, wife and friend. It’s what makes my heart feel alive and what makes life feel so incredible. Being sensitive is actually a gift that doesn’t come naturally for most and if you have it, it’s not a burden. It’s a tool you can use to understand your world, your environment, other people and yourself in depth and it can serve you well.

9. Stop looking for the perfect diet that will solve all your weight or food issues. It does not exist. I promise. Almost any diet can work if you follow it closely and are willing to follow it for the rest of your life. Like, forever. If you’re not able to do that (who the hell is??), your best bet is to find a way you can eat for the rest of your life, that makes your body feel good, you feel satisfied and doesn’t make you want to eat your arm for 90% of the day. I am not selling the perfect diet and no one else is either, regardless of the marketing you see out there. You have to figure out what foods, quantities and qualities work for your particular needs. See #6.

10. Let friends and family take photos of you! This is one of my silly lessons. Someday you might not be here and it would be a damn shame if the people who loved you didn’t have pictures to remember you by, all because you were feeling self-conscious. Don’t say “Ug, I don’t want any photos today!” because you think you look fat, ugly or anything else. Your family and friends think you are amazing no matter what you think you look like and they want to remember the day with photos and that includes with YOU in them. Constantly telling others not to take photos of you (or making a big deal to hide behind others during photo ops) actually puts more focus on you – and that’s probably not what you’re after. Join in, as you are. No one is fixating on how you look in one particular photo as much as you are. Show your kids that you accept yourself as you are at this moment – whether that’s 75 lbs overweight or at your ideal weight. Can you imagine a child saying “don’t take a picture of me, I’m too fat right now!”? It would break your heart. You saying the same thing is breaking everyone’s heart who loves you – and one day it will break yours. Smile for those photos like you are feeling incredibly happy to be there (and don’t you dare hide yourself behind your kid or your cousin). You’re fucking fantastic the way you are at this moment. Yes, I’ve talked about this before.

11. Whether you’re an introvert or extrovert, figure out how you can enjoy both alone time and social time – because there are going to be times that even the most reluctant introvert needs to spend time with others and even the most gregarious extrovert will be all by themselves! Everyone has a specific balance that drains or energizes them and it’s important to know how you can best spend your energy. If you prefer to be with others, learn how to also enjoy your time alone – explore hobbies, learn new skills, travel to a new place etc. If you prefer to be alone, choose more social situations that involve something you really want to do – so that at least when you do need to be social, you’re able to enjoy yourself. People with strong social bonds tend to have better function and well being in old age – so there is good reason to foster those relationships! Though there is also evidence that being alone can help protect against loss of autonomy in old age. It’s important to find the balance that works for you – knowing that both have their benefits and finding ways to enjoy both (even if you prefer one over the other) can go a long way towards the happiness you feel in your life. I find I get depressed and irritable if I spend too much time alone or too much time with others. I am an extroverted introvert (or introverted extrovert – I can’t decide!) and really need to toe the line to feel and function my best.

12. People live the lives they want to have. My father used to say this and it drove me nuts – if someone is in a crappy relationship, how could they want that? If someone hates their job, how could they want that? But it finally dawned on me as an adult that it’s true. People stay in crappy relationships because they think it’s better than being alone or finding someone new – by staying where they are and not doing anything about it they are actively choosing this for their life. People stay in jobs they hate because they are fearful of trying something new or worry that a new job might be just as bad or because it might be hard to find a new job. As unhappy as they might be, their current misery seems safer than the alternatives. Everything new in life is a risk – and sometimes we choose not to take risks (and sometimes we do). It’s a choice.

13. Learn how to say no without apologies. No. No, thank you. No, I am not available. No, I am not interested. It is not impolite to be clear, direct and honest about your intentions. Don’t lead people on to believe that you are interested in doing things that you don’t want to do just because you are afraid to look rude. We’re all getting harassed on social media by former classmates and acquaintances who are selling plastic wrap they want you to believe will make you skinny or breakfast shakes that cost the same amount as your car payment. Just because you used to be buddies in 2nd grade doesn’t mean you owe someone your time, money or energy. I had a woman approach me in the grocery store not too long ago selling Mary Kay – she asked if I had ever tried it. I said “yes, years ago.” She pulled out her phone and asked if I wanted to book an appointment with her to try some samples, I said “No thank you.” She looked dumfounded and stumbled with various questions trying to get me to say yes. Women have a hard time saying no and sales people are trained to take advantage of that. (No offense to sales people – just using y’all as an example). The first couple of times you say no, you might feel a twinge of guilt or like you did something wrong. But I promise you it’s not rude. It’s way more rude to feign interest.

14. Other people’s priorities may not be the same as yours. This has been a tough one for me to learn too! I prioritize some things in my life that you might find silly. You may prioritize some things in your life that I think are silly. Neither of us are “right”. It’s all relative. I have a client who feels that she and her husband are growing apart. Because of their work schedules, the only time they’re both home is on the weekend, but she prefers to spend all day Saturday gardening and he prefers to spend all day Sunday cycling with friends. Neither is “wrong” but they are currently prioritizing their hobbies over their marriage. They might not see it that way, because gardening and cycling are a super important part of their limited free time but at the moment neither is willing to make a compromise with their hobbies for their marriage. They have different priorities and until they both shift to wanting to put their marriage first or one of them is willing to let their hobby take a backseat and join the other on theirs, she will continue to feel like they are growing apart. We’re all coming from different places, desires and needs and should be understanding that that means we place varying values on the same things. I can’t expect you to have the same priorities as me – but you also can’t expect me to have the same ones as you.

15. Your worth is not debatable or fluid. It’s not something that changes. You are worthy and valuable just as you are right now, just as you were 10 years ago, just as you will be 10 years from now. Your value is inherent – you are amazing and have the potential to do amazing things. Your situation and circumstances may change regularly but your core value as a human being never changes. It doesn’t matter if you are 75 lbs overweight. You are not less valuable than you were when you were thinner. It doesn’t matter if you didn’t finish college. That doesn’t make you less valuable than someone with their Master’s. Get it out of your head that you’re not worthy. Let go of the urge to criticize (yourself or others). It’s not cocky or conceited to know you are worthy deep down in your soul. A lot of people struggle with letting themselves feel loved or valuable because they think if they do it must mean that they are prideful or arrogant. That’s hogwash! We have nothing to do with our value or worth. We don’t deserve accolades or a pat on the back for being a valuable and worthy soul so there is nothing to be arrogant about. You’re valuable just because you ARE – not because of things you do or don’t do. Accept that you have this worth and let it fuel your choices in life. It’s a lot harder to make poor decisions when you know you are amazing and have the ability to do good stuff!

Phew! I didn’t mean for that to become such a long post! Do any of these speak to you? Have you found any of these to be important in your life? What lessons have you learned that help you live more peacefully? I’d love if you would share some of them with me.

Click here to get your copy!

Andrea Quigley Maynard

Holistic Health & Lifestyle Coaching

Category Archives: Motivation

How to Have a Good Body Day, Every Day

How to Have a Good Body Day, Every Day

Clean Up Media Sources that Suck (both social and otherwise)

Dress Your Current Body to Feel Fabulous

Choose to Talk About Something Else

Remind Yourself of All the Reasons You Have a Good Body Every day

Move Your Body only in Ways That Feel Good

Change How You Talk To Yourself, Change Your Story (and Your Outcome)

What Does Being “Fit” Mean to You?

Getting from Point A to Point Z. (You can’t skip over the points in between).

Things That’ll Happen when You Stop Obsessing Over What and How Much to Eat

Things That’ll Happen when You Stop Obsessing Over What and How Much to Eat:

Two Tips to Building Body Confidence

Move your body in ways that you love.

Notice how much you think about what your body looks like and then stop doing that.

You Have To Do The Work (Or Why You Don’t Need to Read Another Book, Take Another Course or Do More Research).

Forget Willpower, Instead Learn to Strengthen Your Self-Control

Willpower and Self-Control are the Same Thing but We Think About Them Differently and That’s Part of the Problem

Self-Control is Something That Can Be Strengthened

Practice Makes us Perfect at Whatever we “Practice”

Use Self-Control daily with one Choice. One Step. One Action.

What if We Focused on What We Want as Much as We Focus on What We Don’t Want?

15 Life Lessons to Learn for More Peace in Your Life

15 Life Lessons to Learn for More Peace in Your Life

How to Have a Good Body Day, Every Day

Clean Up Media Sources that Suck (both social and otherwise)

Dress Your Current Body to Feel Fabulous

Choose to Talk About Something Else

Remind Yourself of All the Reasons You Have a Good Body Every day

Move Your Body only in Ways That Feel Good

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Things That’ll Happen when You Stop Obsessing Over What and How Much to Eat:

Share this:

Move your body in ways that you love.

Notice how much you think about what your body looks like and then stop doing that.

Share this:

Share this:

Willpower and Self-Control are the Same Thing but We Think About Them Differently and That’s Part of the Problem

Self-Control is Something That Can Be Strengthened

Practice Makes us Perfect at Whatever we “Practice”

Use Self-Control daily with one Choice. One Step. One Action.

Share this:

Share this:

15 Life Lessons to Learn for More Peace in Your Life

Share this: