May is Mental Health Awareness Month and I will be publishing content that focuses on mental health topics. To read past posts, click on the Mental Health tab under the Dimensions of Wellness Menu.
Hello Warriors! How ya doing? Fitness marketing usually means a lot of hyperbole. Every trainer and coach has their own version of how to best improve. And it may surprise you that I am no different.
The best thing you can do to improve your health. Hands down, bar none, best. This is going to be a revelation, so get ready for it. The absolute best thing you can do to improve your health… is the thing you can/will actually do.
We all have areas that we know we could (and maybe should) improve. We all, also, have our own individual barriers to doing those things. For example, you might know that you need to get better sleep. More hours per night. Deeper, more restorative sleep. But if you’ve got small kids (especially under a year old), that might not be in the cards at present.
During the course of living life, we all have to make decisions about our priorities. If you’ve got 3 kids who are all involved in after school activities, then maybe a home cooked dinner isn’t possible every night. You prioritize that when you can, but there may be a few nights per week where you need to just get everyone fed.
If you are a primary caregiver for a relative (maybe an aging parent or a partner who is going through a medical treatment), you are spending your time and energy taking care of someone else. Which means that you may not have the time, energy, or ability to prioritize your own self care during those seasons of life.
Whatever your own individual circumstances, my advice to is make a list of all the things you’d like to work on improving. Sleep, hydration, quality of food, exercise, family time, therapy and mental health needs. Whatever. Put it all on the list.
On a separate piece of paper, make a list of all of your life’s non negotiables. The things you need to accomplish across a given week to keep the wheels from completely coming off the bus. Work, activities, commitments, care responsibilities, chores and home tasks. You get the point here.
Overwhelmed just thinking about doing this? Me too. But I promise you that isn’t the way I want to leave you feeling. Put your two lists side by side and just sit with them. This is what your mind/soul feels like when you try to do a complete overhaul and it’s why it usually doesn’t work. Nobody has the bandwidth for all of that all the time.
So what I want you to do is take a good hard look at that first list. What are one or maybe two things that you feel are manageable for you to tackle. Right now, during this phase of life, without needing to cross anything off your obligatory to-do list.
Anything that involves time you don’t have needs to be the first to go. Maybe you don’t have the time right now for an hour workout four times a week. Instead of beating yourself up for that, focus on something else that you do have the time to manage.
Anything that involves purchasing (and storing) special equipment goes. If I’ve said it once I’ve said it a zillion times, self care does not mean purchasing something. Most parents would like to send their kids to school with perfectly packed lunches. I don’t know about you, but I don’t have the space to store half a crate of cookie cutters and bento boxes.
Anything that is going to cause more stress than it solves becomes an automatic cut. It defeats the entire purpose of trying to improve. If that something is causing more stress, then the mental and emotional load is too high and it isn’t worth it. Sometimes you just need a half hour of Netflix time to chill after a tough day before bed.
After the hard cuts comes the part that is more difficult. Sifting through the wants and figuring out what you can reasonably make work for you. Anything that requires a crazy amount of mental gymnastics to make do-able at this stage should be a red flag. Those are things that you can revisit during a different season of life, but maybe aren’t appropriate for you now.
My guess is that at this point, you probably only have a handful of things left. Take your time and ask yourself which one(s) are most important to you. In my previous examples: instead of an hour workout maybe a 20 minute walk at lunch time, getting more fruit and veggies into the kiddos lunch, or slashing Netflix time in half would be more do-able options.
The things that you have the bandwidth for and are important to you personally are the ones you will put in the effort for. So, start with those smaller steps. Aim for an extra glass of water, 100 more steps daily, 15 more minutes of sleep. Whatever. These steps may seem very miniscule, but every snowman starts as a few snowballs.
Until next time, be well friends!
