wellness coaching Archives - Page 2 of 2

Fall Fitness Tips

October 6, 2018October 6, 2018
by Smart Fit Womxn

Is fall your favorite season? If so, perhaps you’re getting excited to break out the scarves and boots, spend evenings wrapped in a blanket out by the firepit, or simply surround yourself with pumpkin everything. However you plan to spend fall this year, we’ve got five tips to keep your fitness on point:

Know what you want to achieve and why it matters

Getting a clear picture of what being healthy and fit means to you is the first step toward achieving your health goals. As Yogi Berra said, “If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll end up somewhere else.”¹ Additionally, getting clear on why being healthy is important to you and the good that can come of it is an excellent motivator to make your picture of health a reality.

Reflect on the strengths you bring to the table

Did you know the strengths you bring to other aspects of your life can bring you success on your health journey? Sometimes we forget this and compartmentalize our strengths to certain areas of our lives. But you can leverage your unique skills and talents to overcome challenges and achieve your goals. Have your organizational skills made your family’s lives and schedules simpler? Does your aptitude to dive deep into research and come out with understanding make you an amazing professor? What about your ability to gather friends around you and form a solid community? Organizing meals for the week, diving into nutrition research, and gathering friends for workout classes are just a few ways these strengths could be translated to your health journey. When you know the strengths you bring to the table, you are better able to use those in pursuit of any goal, including your health goals.

Consider potential and probable challenges you’ll face

It can be frustrating when you’re motivated and excited to start new health habits, and you find yourself meeting challenges and setbacks. But, knowing these will come in some form or fashion can help you plan for them beforehand. As we’ve mentioned before, when you’ve planned to fail, you can have a method in place to help you navigate challenges and stick with the habits you’re building.

Leverage support from your surroundings

If you were to pause for a moment and think about the people in your life and the resources you have access to, you may find things in your surroundings that can help you be successful on your health journey. Who in your life can support you if you asked them to? What resources do you have nearby or in your home that you could draw on to help your vision of health become a reality? Simply asking for help and getting a little creative can make a big difference in accomplishing your goals.

Recruit back-up

As mentioned in the first tip, sometimes we experience failure merely because we do not have a vision of what success on our health journey means to us. If you’re interested in determining what your vision is, and having a partner join you on this journey, wellness coaching could be right for you! When you work with our wellness coaches, they’ll help you gain clarity on your vision, and walk you through the tips above (and more!) so that you can look good, feel good, and live the healthy life you long for.

If you’re ready to focus on your fitness this fall, following these five steps is a great start. And don’t forget to add wellness coaching to the list of all the quintessential fall things you’re enjoying!

~Written By Brittni Paris, SFC Wellness Coach and Writer

Credits

¹https://www.forbes.com/quotes/10405/

Photo Credits

Photo by Alex Geerts on Unsplash

Photo by Charis Gegelman on Unsplash

Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash

Be the best version of you!

Back to School + Thoughts on Healthy Habits

August 29, 2018
by Smart Fit Womxn

It’s that time of year again-back to school! Whether you’re a mom, a relative of school-aged kids, an employee at a school or university, a student yourself, or simply noticing all the school supplies showing up at your favorite stores, it’s hard to miss the transition back into the school year.

Regardless of your involvement with school, there are a few ways we can use this change of the season to benefit us on our health journeys:

Take advantage of the “Clean Slate” phenomenon to start new habits.

When we experience a change (a new season, a move, a new rhythm of life), we can use this “Clean Slate” to our advantage, as it is an excellent time to begin new habits. Why? Those new habits are more likely to stick! We associate new habits with a fresh season of life, which helps our brains recognize that this is simply our new normal. For more information on this topic, check out the post, “So Fresh and So Clean”.

Cultivate grace and patience for yourself.

If you are directly affected by a new school year, you may find your summer routine thrown for a loop! Recognize that it is normal to be a bit shocked when your day-to-day schedule suddenly changes, and most likely, becomes much busier! If you find it’s difficult to maintain the healthy habits you developed this summer, take it as an opportunity to show yourself grace and patience. Give yourself the opportunity to get used to your new schedule, and time to figure out what habits you’d like to keep or change now that you’ve switched into school mode.

Revise your habits or routine to fit your current life situation.

Michael Hyatt and his daughter, Meghan Hyatt Miller, talk about this process on their podcast for high-achieving leaders. Though many of their recommendations are applicable to running businesses, they can also be useful when we look at our personal routines.

They discuss when we are revising or creating new routines, we should begin with the outcome we want in mind. For instance, what healthy habits do you want to incorporate during the school year? Once you know this, you can think about what needs to be true for you to successfully implement those habits now that the school year is underway. Then, you can “reverse engineer” the process, which is essentially working backward from the outcome you’d like to see, thinking through all of the aspects of your new school schedule, and creating new habits or routines that fit into that schedule and help you reach your desired outcome. They also encourage listeners to remember that you may have to go through this new routine several times before you find something that actually works. This is another reason to have grace and patience for ourselves as we set out to create new habits and routines.

As you embark on a new school year (or watch others do so), thinking of it in terms of an aide to reassess and/or begin new healthy habits, rather than something that is detrimental to your summer healthy habits, can enable you to take advantage of this new season of life.

Cheers to your best school year yet!

Written By: Brittni Paris, SFC Blogger and Wellness Coach

Sources:

Hyatt, M., & Hyatt Miller, M. (2018, August 14). Engineering Success: How to create with the end in mind. Lead to Win Podcast. Podcast retrieved from https://michaelhyatt.com/podcast-engineering-success/

Photo Credits:

Photo by Renan Kamikoga on Unsplash

Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash

Photo by Kyle Glenn on Unsplash

Be the best version of you!

A Healthy Life For Good

July 1, 2018July 1, 2018
by Smart Fit Womxn

Have you ever found yourself in this situation? You decide you’re going to get healthy. Now is the time and you’ve made up your mind to do so. You buy new workout clothes and shoes. You find a running partner or sign up for a gym membership. You purchase the latest meal delivery service or buy more leafy greens at the store than you know what to do with. You KNOW this is the time when you’ll start living a healthy life for good.

And then…you stop.

Life happens, old habits creep back in, and suddenly you’re back to where you started. Except this time, you’re a bit more skeptical that you could actually live a consistently healthy lifestyle. You blame it on a lack of motivation and wonder why you can’t just get it together.

Read more “A Healthy Life For Good” →

Body Image

So Fresh and So Clean

May 28, 2018May 28, 2018
by Smart Fit Womxn

Summer is upon us. Yes, it may be a few weeks until the actual changing of the seasons, but depending on where you live and what you’re doing, you’re probably feeling warmer temperatures, experiencing longer days, and possibly starting (or about to start) your summer break.

Read more “So Fresh and So Clean” →