Signs of Life

September 23, 2022September 23, 2022
by Smart Fit Womxn

Too often those of us in the health and wellness space focus on what’s going wrong with our clients. What risk factors for future disease do you have? What bad habits should you break to help you be healthier? Why aren’t you (fill in the blank)…exercising more, eating more fruits and vegetables, sleeping more, spending less time on social media, releasing your stress in ways that don’t involve eating, etc., etc., etc.? Basically, why aren’t you being a superhuman?!?

There’s typically a beautiful intention behind this: we want you, our client, to suffer less and experience health, wholeness, and confidence in your body. We want you to have all the energy and vigor you need to live life to the fullest. We want you to see yourself as beautiful and strong, and in turn, bring more beauty and strength to the world. We want good things for you.

But what happens when we focus on what’s going wrong instead of what’s going right?

We get more wrong than we get right!

And sadly, we see our wonderful clients start following our lead. Perhaps you’ve experienced this, too. You start focusing on what’s going wrong and how you think you’re failing. No matter how much progress you make towards a goal, you only see when you don’t fully achieve it, and understandably feel discouraged.

While there is certainly a time and place to discuss things like risk factors for a disease and ways those could be addressed, this doesn’t mean all our focus should be on finding what’s wrong so we can fix it. When we do this, the track record of outcomes isn’t great.

So, what can we do instead?

We can start looking for signs of life, places where you’re thriving. And as we do so, our hope is you’ll follow our lead.

We may see that someone isn’t exercising regularly, but they rank a 5 out of 5 for relationship satisfaction. Or they struggle with liking what they see in the mirror, but they found a job they absolutely love.

Everyone has something that is working in their life. Something that is going well. Some strength they’re utilizing to make life better.

Our job is to help you see what those strengths are and where things are going right. Then we can help you apply this to other areas of your health and well-being so you can thrive there, too.

Here’s how this can play out in a coaching session:

While reviewing how a client’s goals went for the week, we hear they didn’t achieve their goal of eating fruits and vegetables each day. But as we keep asking questions such as “What was the best part of pursuing this goal?”, we find out they planned and prepped lunch for the week for the first time ever. Thanks to our discussion during the previous coaching session, they realized the organizational skills they use at work can be applied to creating healthier habits, like meal planning and prepping.

If we only looked at what was wrong, our client would leave feeling discouraged about not completing their goal. Instead, they see a fuller picture of the truth – yes, they didn’t perfectly complete that goal, but they took steps in the right direction to make achieving that goal more feasible in the future.

When we look at what’s going right and where you’re thriving, you’re a lot more likely to continue making progress on your goals and achieving all those things you want and we want for you – health, wholeness, energy, vigor, and confidence in your body.