How to build healthy habits when your health may not seem like your top priority
Too busy to make the nourishing meals you really want? Exercise routine gone out the window?
You appreciate that maintaining health is central to your happiness and quality of life. Yet modern living can be a juggling act, and when you’re running a family and/or pinning down a busy job, it’s easy to neglect some of the foundations of healthy living.
Of course, attending to our health and wellbeing in every possible way isn’t, or simply can’t be, a prime focus of all our time and attention - but how do you forge a lifestyle that makes space for those things that make you feel good?
From the macro picture to the micro habits, here are my top tips to help you build a healthier lifestyle:
1) Get perspective on the big picture
According to a study from Duke University, around 45% of our everyday actions are made up not of decisions but of habits - those things that we do often and regularly, sometimes without even knowing we’re doing them. Another way to look at it is that our lifestyle is the sum of our habits.
So, before we zoom in on specifics, when I’m working with my coaching clients, I encourage them to take a moment to reflect on how their lifestyle at large is working for them overall, as when it is, this is generally when healthy habits will flow most naturally.
In my view, our wellbeing feeds our health. So consider your wellness in the context of core areas such as your physical environment, important relationships and family, your social life and fun, work-life, financial wellbeing, the communities you are part of, intellectual and personal growth, and spiritual wellness.
By pausing and making a space to reflect, you might actually observe that things are in a good place overall. Or, for example, you might make connections between eating habits and stress in other areas of your life which could be addressed. Or, you might have a realisation that you’re ready for a bigger shake-up of the priorities in your life.
2) In your minds eye, have an inspiring vision for how you want things to be
My guess is the majority of people in the UK exist in a sub-optimal state of health and are only spurred into taking action to make lifestyle changes when things get bad.
If our motivation to change comes primarily from negative feelings associated with poor health and energy, we will likely do the minimum it takes to make ourselves feel a little bit better. And then, when willpower inevitably runs out, we will slip back into our original habits until the next time we hit the bottom. This pattern can keep some people stuck 'bumping along the bottom', rather than thriving.
To overcome this and lead the healthy, full and meaningful life you really want, I believe you first need to have a vivid and inspiring picture of what a healthy, full, meaningful looks and feels like for you personally.
To help underpin your motivation, your vision needs to be clear, realistic and fuelled by your personal values, positive ambition, enjoyable actions and compassion for yourself. Rather than being motivated to act primarily from a place of fear or pain, a wellness visualisation is a powerful tool that can help gently pull us towards good health and wellbeing.
2) Create a stable foundation for self-care
When it comes down to self-care habits, in the Food & Spirit™ model of health and healing that I’m trained to work with, there are seven core components:
nutrition and eating habits
emotional nourishment
balanced living
movement
authentic self-expression
mental fitness
connection
When we create a stable foundation for self-care with adequate balance across these core components, we will feel balanced too. Depending on your starting point and stress levels right now, this might feel like a big or overwhelming task. If it does, I encourage you to slow down and take pressure off yourself.
Your real priority might not be overhauling your diet or rushing to another spin class, but taking micro-moments to relax and breathe (to help create balance and build resilience), getting to bed half an hour earlier (to improve your mental fitness and energy), or being more mindful during family meal times (to better enjoy the time whilst you’re with your family to nourish yourself emotionally and to be more engaged with the experience of eating and physical nourishment).
Healthy roots can take time to grow, and this works best from a place of grounding and regulation.
3) Practice one new habit at a time
When we change our habits, we change our lives. But trying to do too much at once can be counter productive, particularly when we have a lot on our plates already. This is seen time and again when people follow strict and unsustainable diets to lose weight fast and then experience the frustrations and physical consequences of rebound weight gain when they go back to their original eating patterns.
Consider your own self-care and pick ONE new habit you want to create or develop, that is aligned with your wellness vision. Don’t mentally commit to exercising five a days a week if you need to master one or two days first. Pick the easiest option and the one that will bring you joy as well as rewards to your health. Small, incremental changes help your mind (and body) adjust, and like the tortoise and the hare analogy, are shown to win time and again.
Take time to preempt any barriers to your success and what you will do about them when you encounter them, as part of your success may come down to you finding ways to reduce friction or obstacles before they arise.
4) Keep going even when you’re not feeling motivated
Even with a clear wellness vision and an incremental approach to habits, there will inevitably be times when we don’t feel motivated to take care of ourselves in the ways we know are best for us.
Despite the difficult thoughts and feelings and mental tug of war these moments bring up, we do still have the power to choose what we do with our physical bodies - for example, to getting the chopping board out and make a meal from scratch when our tendency is to plump for a ready meal.
There will be times to let go of your own expectations, but you will also have plenty of opportunities to grasp the moment and to act on your original intentions. Practicing taking action without the feeling of motivation behind you helps to build confidence, and helps keep the momentum in building the healthy habits and life we really want.
"Habit is but a long practice," Aristotle wrote, which "becomes men's nature in the end."
Next steps
If you need more support on your health and wellbeing journey, please do check out my Resilience programme for support with prioritising health, mood and energy promoting nutrition and self-care.
