Productivity, getting things done, setting goals, and your health
What does all of this have to do with my health, you might be asking. Isn’t this a health site? Where’s the info about what I should be eating?
It’s true, I haven’t written about food in awhile. The truth is, I have a lot of thoughts, insights and knowledge about food and it’s incredible health benefits. Food is truly an incredible vehicle to healing the body, mind, soul, and spirit. It can also be the opposite and wreak havoc.
But I’ve come to realize through coaching others, learning from others, and through my own life experience that stress is a factor that effects everything. And if life isn’t managed well, then stress enters in easily and it can be very hard to manage anything else.
There are a lot of ways to manage life, stress, live without at peace, and to overcome an overstressed lifestyle. Some of those methods include eating the right foods, sleeping well, having special nutrients to aid recovery, moving your body, talking through relational issues, spending time in quiet and stillness, and there are many more.
For today, I’d like to talk about how learning the art of goal setting and how to productively manage new habits (or old ones even) can truly be an effective skill that will make it easier to lose weight, gain more energy, develop a healthy eating pattern, and more.
“Successful people aren’t born that way. They become successful by establishing the habit of doing things unsuccessful people don’t like to do. The successful people don’t always like doing these things themselves; they just get on and do them.”—DON MARQUIS
I love this quote. Success, health, good habits and productivity is NOT always about “being good” at something. Most people equate a healthy person with one who is just “good at it.” I’ve heard it a million times: “oh wow you’re just being good” or “wow you’re just athletic.” Truth be told, I’m neither of those things. I have the same struggles. Truthfully, I’d love to eat chocolate cake (gluten free of course haha!), never work out, and sit on a beautiful island somewhere. I also like to work very hard when I do work. And I do enjoy some sort of movement activity. But I’d like all of those things to be at my leisure. What I want, when I want.
Unfortunately, that method of living doesn’t really work for maintaining health, developing dreams, paying the bills, having a long healthy life with people you love, etc. Our goals have to match up with our values and we have to be able to follow through with them. If I value a long, healthy life then I have to do things now that will contribute to that. Even if I don’t particularly want to.
So, let’s continue and ask ourselves a few questions:
GETTING INTO ALIGNMENT
1.) What is it that I want?
It’s so important to ask this question. There’s a saying that goes something like: “If you don’t know where you’re going, that’s where you’ll end up.” That is SO true. Conversely, if you have a vague idea (ex: “I want to be healthy”) that still does not allow you to achieve that goal because you don’t know what that looks like.
If I notice that I’m not feeling like I am where I want to be, I usually take a few moments to take a look at what I’m aiming at. Is it a clear target? (Ex: “I want to be healthy vs I want to run a 5K, have more energy, and have a clean bill of health from my bloodwork”). Another great question to ask is whether it’s something you can achieve. I’m known for setting goals far higher than I could achieve. I’m also gracious with myself to adjust, which is very important.
If you’re using the “SMART” goals format, the more specific, measurable, and attainable it is, the more likely you’ll be able to get there.
This is where you can also focus on defining your “WHY”—why do you want this goal or dream?
What is your intention behind it?
2.) Does my current lifestyle lead me toward those things?
Now this one is where the rubber meets the road. I might have a specific goal that I want to run a 5K, but if I never make it out my door for a run, then I will never run a 5K. Likewise, I might want to be healthy, full of energy, have deep sleep, lose weight, but if I keep eating that chocolate cake and never have any fruits and vegetables, I’m setting myself up for continual failure.
The trick here is to really be genuine and have grace with yourself. You don’t want to beat yourself up over all the things you’re not doing. The goal is to be objective and take a real look at your current lifestyle to see where you might need to make adjustments.
You might actually need to adjust the goal itself. Remember that it needs to be attainable. Running a marathon when you haven’t walked around the block lately isn’t the best goal. Perhaps you could slightly scale back the goal to a shorter term goal that leads you to this greater goal. If we stay with this example, you might want to try setting a goal of walking 3-4 days a week for 30 minutes. (Remember the goal has to be attainable). And then see what affect that adjustment has on your lifestyle.
When I wanted to get my health and energy back, I had to make a lot of adjustments to my lifestyle. I had to let go of a lot of things and focus on learning to cook, moving my body in a sustainable way, and have an overall slower pace of life for a period of time.
3.) What blocks do I have?
If your desire is to be healthy, lose weight, have more energy, get stronger, heal from a chronic ailment, etc then this is a big one.
I don’t hear this question asked a whole lot in the habit world. But when I’ve had to do “stand up” meetings for work, this is one of the top questions: where am I blocked? I transferred that question to myself as I was learning to heal and it became a powerful tool. I became more “productive” at the things I needed to accomplish because I’d specifically address the reasons why I wasn’t.
For example: I was very low on energy when I first started this process. My goal was to be “alive”, full of health, strength, and energy. If I did too many things at once, it would literally take me several days of bed rest to recover. So when I looked at what my blocks were to getting to my goal, initially it was that I tried to do way too many things at once. I scaled back, wrote out all the things I needed/wanted to do, and spread them across each day. Instead of trying to get them all done at once, I’d choose 1-3 things per day (sometimes very simple) and then rest.
Other times, my blocks were simply that if I didn’t schedule things in, they wouldn’t get done. If I didn’t schedule grocery shopping into my week, I wouldn’t do it and I’d need to eat out. This one is huge for many people. If you don’t plan your meals in advance, plan your grocery shopping, it can be challenging to change your eating patterns. I use the Pepperplate app to schedule my meals and add them to its very simple shopping list. No more long hours planning meals and I know what I’m going to eat each day. It made life a lot more peaceful.
4.) What is one thing I can do to move forward toward one value or goal?
Moving forward and learning good habits is actually far more about balance than changing everything all at once. In fact, most people are not successful at creating new habits because they try and change too many things at once.
So here, I recommend focusing on 1-3 changes at a time. That’s it. One is great and no more than three. If you can really focus on nailing just one goal or habit change at a time, you will see improvement much faster and more sustainable than when you “bite off more than you can chew.”
Focus intently on that one goal UNTIL you have it integrated into your life and it’s no longer an area that you need to wrestle with.
But what do you do when a goal has many steps toward it? Start simple. Start at one-step. Baby steps will take you much further than no steps.
Ask yourself today: What is one thing I can do, whether big or small, to move forward?
Take that step. I believe in you.
And when you’ve taken that step, you can ask the question again for the next step.
Cheering you on!
A few helpful tools:
– Todoist (Task planning)
– Pepperplate (Meal planning)
– Pomodoro timer (Timing)
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Kirsten Larsen is a wholeness coach, helping people experience freedom and breakthrough in body, soul, and spirit.
