Anticipating the Change

August 7, 2024August 7, 2024
by Smart Fit Womxn

Ah, summer. It can be a delightful season, full of longer days, more time outside, and more flexibility in your schedule. And even if your schedule doesn’t change at all, often the rhythms of nature can cause things to feel different – more expansive, more POSSIBLE.

And as you finish out the days of summer and start to look ahead to a new fall season, you might find things start ramping up in your schedule – especially if you or any of your family members run on a school calendar timeline.

Along with all the beautiful, exciting, or new changes fall can bring, it can also be detrimental to our health goals.

And it’s not fall’s fault – our healthy rhythms can come under attack whenever we experience a major life or season shift…

A new job
Quitting a job
A new baby
Becoming an empty nester
The holiday season
A busy work season
Vacation mode
Back-to-work/school mode

Often what I see as a wellness coach is that we enter these new seasons without appreciating the force they’ll have on our rhythms. Whether it’s simply not realizing this is the case or thinking, “I can do it all, no matter how busy my schedule gets!”, our helpful routines get upended, and we find ourselves feeling less than healthy.

So how do we approach a new season without losing our healthy habits?

Anticipating the Change

By using a technique I like to call “Anticipating the Change”.

The definition of “anticipate” is to “regard as probable; expect or predict”¹. When we anticipate the change in seasons coming our way, we expect or predict that our health rhythms will have to change, too. Now of course, we can’t predict every change we’ll weather, but there are some things we can see coming.

When you have the benefit of knowing a change is coming, there are 3 things you can do to keep from losing your healthy rhythms:

Step 1:

Say to yourself “Hey – this change in seasons is going to impact my current healthy rhythms.” It’s just helpful to be honest about this!

Step 2:

Tell yourself “I can’t do it all, and that’s okay.” Once again, honesty is your friend!

Step 3:

Determine what IS possible for you in this next season.

How do you do that? You take 15-20 minutes to sit down with your calendar (and family members or roommates if helpful!) and take an honest look at what your schedule will be like.

Next, you think about which 2-3 healthy rhythms are the most life-giving to you, AKA they pack the biggest punch in making you feel your best.

Finally, you find the smallest version of those and plan where they’ll fit in your new schedule.

An example of this in action…

Let’s say during the summer months, you were able to go for a run first thing in the morning 3 times a week and a family hike on the weekends. But when school starts back up for your kids, you’re going to be on carpool duty during the week and at their sporting events on the weekends. You know that doing movement outside makes you feel your best, so you want to keep up that rhythm.

So, you look at your new schedule and find that you can get a run in 2 times per week after dropping the kids off at school, and you can walk around the soccer field at your kids’ soccer games on the weekends.

Now you have a plan before fall even begins! But if you don’t take the time (remember – just 15-20 minutes!) to sit down and determine this, you’ll likely end up getting no runs or weekend movement in, and a few weeks into fall you’ll feel lethargic and upset that you’re failing to take care of yourself.

And if you’re already in the middle of a change in seasons and feel like you’ve fallen off the wagon with your health habits – welcome to the club! Know that at any point during your new season, you can find your footing again by following the steps above. And now you can be equipped with what to do before ANOTHER change in season comes your way.