The best question you can ask yourself before embarking on a health-healing journey is, “Am I willing to do the work?” Healing is not linear, usually takes longer than what we think it will, and can be boring at times (because we are addicted to sexy/exciting/ridiculous/unrealistic methods).
The further into living a more holistic, all-encompassing healing lifestyle, the more I am realizing that some people are afraid to heal. How could a health coach be saying this? Well, because I used to be that way.
I was stuck in my addiction. I was addicted to chaos, panic, and making things harder than they needed to be. Being stressed was my comfort zone and I didn’t want to be zen. I didn’t want to be chill. I thought I did and even pretended to be chill, but it never worked. My brain wouldn’t stop thinking, my heart wouldn’t stop racing and my to-do list never got shorter.
You know why? Because I liked it. As much as I complained about how stressed I was, I was choosing to live life like that. It was familiar for me, I loved bragging about how much meal prep I had to do on Sundays, and loved complaining about how long I spent in the gym each day. Ugh, it’s so weird to actually type that out.
When I hired my health coach, I like to believe I was fully ready to change, but looking back on it, I realize I wasn’t. I wanted him to fix me. I quickly learned that his job was not to fix me. His job was to guide me. I had to do the work. He was there to lead me to water, but it was up to me to drink the water.
This is the truth for all health coaches. We can guide, coach and encourage you, but it’s up to you to do the work. Before we start, you have to really question whether or not you’re ready to do the work. If you half-ass your program, that’s a good place to start auditing. Your coach won’t write a half-ass program (well, as long as you’ve hired a good one), so make sure you give it a fighting chance.
When I personally stop seeing progress, or experience it at a slower rate, I have to ask myself, “Is this user error or is this an issue with the program?” More often than not, it’s a user error. Remember, self auditing is one of the best tools you can have as a human being. If I can truly, without a doubt, say I’ve been following the plan with 100% accuracy and adherence, then I can consider making alterations to the program. But, I must make sure that I’m not self-sabotaging before I make changes.
I think a lot of us, whether we admit it or not, enjoy being stressed. It’s familiar for us and we are trained by our culture that being stressed=being successful. To truly heal, you are probably going to have to let go of, or at least reduce, some of the habits that have made you sick. Whether it’s your excuses, your fears, your poor nutrition habits, your poor sleep patterns, etc, you’re going to have to change. But you knew that, right?
The biggest question is if you’re willing to let those habits -the ones you hold onto, but are making you worse-go. What you’ve been doing is not working, or else you wouldn’t be reading this. So, this is your call to action. Realize that you are very capable of changing, you are not required to stay the same, and you have support available to you to help you get to where you want to be.
For a 60 minute consultation, click here. I look forward to hearing your story and helping you discover the healthier version of you.
