sarah smith

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On three legged stools, drill sergeants, and talking to yourself...

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I like to think of wellness in three parts:


nutrition
mindset
fitness

I feel as though everything involved in creating true wellness in our lives falls into one of these categories.
Most people tend to excel in one of these categories and struggle a bit in the others. It's difficult to have long term success in any one of these areas without addressing the other two. Think, three legged stool with one leg missing or shorter than the others...

For example, a client that is currently excelling in fitness, might not see many results if her nutritional intake is sabotaging her hormone-related fat loss goals.
Mindset is an equally important player in wellness.
I've talked with many people who eat nourishing healthfull diets and move often, but are so stressed that their chronically high cortisol levels keep their bodies in "fat-storing" mode.


Currently, I am not struggling with nutrition and moderate eating, but being consistent with exercise and learning to calm my mind/be present, those are areas that I am working on.
 
What about you?

You might be someone that loves the meditation, mindfulness, and calming aspects of wellness, but navigating food choices or being consistent with exercise is proving to be challenging or impossible!

Perhaps you are happy to exercise every day of your life but practicing moderation and mindfulness in food and life, is difficult for you?

Or maybe you love the food aspect of wellness, you recipe shop, you cook, you try all sorts of new healthfull body-nourishing whole foods, but you don't particularly enjoy movement and your brain is often restless, stressed, and discouraged.
 
Wherever you in your wellness today, take your journal and try the activity below!
Journal Activity-Who doesn't love an activity!
Make three columns, "Nutrition" "Fitness" and "Mindset" and without any judgment (that part is difficult) write down some of your strengths and weaknesses in each of these areas.

Pick 2 weaknesses and 2 strengths.

In your journal write out a positive statement about your two strengths.
For example if you're great at the nutrition stuff then maybe write something like,
"I rock because I am someone that happily does the work of creating inexpensive and nourishing meals to feed my amazing body."

And then write two positive statements about your 2 weaknesses. For example, if you think you need to exercise more then you can write something like,
"I will find more ways enjoy and frequently participate in exercise." Or ,
"Exercise, I will own you and make you work in my life."
I would suggest writing these statements on a couple of post-it notes and putting them in places where you can read them (aloud if you dare!) on a daily basis.

Be sure to do this with both the positive AND the negative statements.

Please don't focus on the negative.
In order for this exercise to work you have to simultaneously set a challenge and give yourself props!
 

The Boston in me couldn't resist!

Think about it, if you're running race and you're pushing as hard as you can and someone is screaming at you:

"Push harder!", "Dig deeper!", "Move your slow butt!" "You're falling behind!!!".

In that moment you might work harder out of pride and the need to prove that person wrong, but when the race is over, is that someone that you will go to for support, for future advice?
Is that someone a person you want at your next race?

 

 

We see this approach in personal training a lot.

The drill sergeant trainer style works in the moment.
The client pushes through and gets in one more rep, more more round, pushes harder and might even feel better for having done so, but those clients often don't come back.
This is not an inspiring relationship and the fear of not measuring up will keep many a client from continuing in their training with such a person
To accomplish things in life you need goals and inspiration.
You need encouragement as well as tough love. To learn more about setting "behavior-based" goals vs. "outcome-based" goals click here!

Don't worry, you're excelling in certain areas and you want to improve in others.

Remember, the things that you need to work on will be different that what someone else needs to focus on, but that doesn't mean they have it right and you don't, it just means that you're different and this is where you are today.
By speaking aloud your strengths you're telling yourself that you have what it takes.
By speaking aloud your weaknesses, you're remind yourself of where to focus on improving.

Both things are equally important when it comes to wellness.

 

If one of the areas that you would like to work in is fitness and exercise then you might want to checkout my latest program,
Wayfaring Wellness TM!
This program is perfect for you if you're struggling to make exercise happen because

it's too time-consuming
you don't know where to start
you're a beginner and many workout programs are just too intense
you travel a lot
you're tired of workouts that yield no results
you need something that is flexible and modular because your life looks a little different every day
you need workouts that allows for interruptions so you don't feel like you're quitting, because kids!!!
you need to try something new and inspiring....
With Wayfaring Wellness TM you get 3 result-producing, fat-loss sparking, beginner friendly (but still appropriate for intermediate and advanced folks) workouts!
You can do these workouts almost anywhere and in any amount of time that you have!
They require next to no equipment and the program is only $11.97!
Click on the icon below to learn more!
Have a great day!
xoxo
Sarah