Simple Wellness - Breaking Free

3.5

It's Time to Overcome

Fifth post in a Simple Wellness series

If you have the conviction to overcome past choices and ruts, we want to share some tools to help break free of the old way of living. A few of these are credited to Prevention magazine and a great article they provided this month about beating food addiction. The fact is, we can outgrow our old ways of living when we put our minds to it.

Here are some suggestions:

• Write down goals in simple language, in your own handwriting. This helps solidify goals in our mind and make them real. Goals should be simple and yet stretch us beyond where we think we can go. And it is great to keep your goals visibly prominent; post them somewhere that you'll have to look at them regularly (on the bathroom mirror or your car dashboard, for instance.)
• Watch your language, because it matters, a lot. Our minds automatically go to work on whatever we feed them, so if we feed our minds with negative talk ("I can't do it", and "I'll never be able to... (lose weight, eat in a healthy way, be physically active)" and any other self-defeating phrases) our minds believe what we've just said. The opposite is also true. If we feed our minds with positive self-talk ("I'm going to eat nutritious, whole foods all this week," and "I'll find a way to be physically active for 30 minutes today..." our minds will accept that as truth and do what it takes to make it so.
• Create accountability around our goals. If we form and maintain accountable relationships, that is the foundation of lasting improvement in life. Prevention suggests a goal-setting app called Coach.me where you can enlist friends to view your progress and offer encouragement. You can also get crowdsourced encouragement and even register a pre-determined cash penalty you'll charge yourself if you don't meet your goal.
• Understand the power of replacements and avoidance. When unhealthy choices have been our norm, it is valuable to identify replacement foods or ingredients which meet the needs of our meals or palette, but with healthful nutrients. Things like almond milk in place of dairy milk and frozen bananas in place of ice cream. Alongside replacements is outright avoidance. If you face significant temptation from an unhealthy choice (food or lifestyle activity, etc.) maybe you just need to manage around that temptation by avoiding it.

So give it a try now. We're often a lot better at this than we give ourselves credit for. Write down some goals, create some positive dialog with yourself and seek accountability. In no time you'll be on your way to achieving your next step in your wellness.

By the Way

Research says it takes about 21 days to form a new habit. That's only three weeks. And after about a week to 10 days of modifying our behavior (ie, making healthier choices) we will have overcome most of the grip of cravings and old habits. Another resource suggested by Prevention for tracking these kinds of good modifications is the GoalsOnTrack app. Today is the first day of the rest of your life, and overcoming your first hurdle may be only weeks away.