7 Steps to Conquer Your Challenges

When you are making a new habit - whether walking every day or eating vegetables at dinner - you will face challenges...

• Your work and family are busy. When do you fit in the walking?

• No one likes vegetables, including you. How do you hide them in recipes?

• You don't know how to start or who can help. Where do you turn?

In my 16 week Thrive Series I help clients discover and defeat their barriers to success. Here are seven ways you can conquer your challenges to living healthy:

1.  Check your beliefs.  Journal for a day or two the thoughts that go through your head about fitness.  Some common ones are "Oh, this is boring," "I need to ______; I'll go for my walk later," "______ needs me to help them.  I don't want to be selfish; I'll just grab a quick bite and fix a nice dinner tomorrow night," and "I only have 10 minutes, so what's the point."

Once you have written your thoughts you can check their validity and come up with truth.

2.  Meditate.  We live our current patterns by reflex and without thought.  To change to a new manner of living, you must consciously choose your actions each moment, until the new way of living is automatic.  How do you change to a new pattern?  Think constantly on the new habit you want to form.

3. Stop believing the media lies.  When 75-90% of dieters re-gain the weight they lost, it cannot be "dieters" - but must be the "diets." (There is a lot of research explaining the physiology and psychology of diets.)  So, get off the diets and find an approach to eating that you enjoy, that your body was created to do.

4.  Prioritize and Delegate.  If lack of time is an issue, write down what you feel responsible to do and then tell yourself "Only do what only I can do."  Start there and delegate, delay, or delete everything else.

5.  Eliminate all-or-none thinking.  Ten minutes is better than none.  Vegetables on five nights is better than three.  Six cups of water is better than two.  Believe in progress.

6.  Choose fun physical activity over exercise.  I do not enjoy indoor cardio.  However, in the winter I despise exercising in a cold wind.  So, my solution is two-fold.  Sometimes I ride a stationary bike and catch up on reading and sometimes I deep clean the house at a fast pace to get up my heart rate.  Well, a third option is walking the mall at a brisk pace, too.  

In the spring and summer, if you don't enjoy traditional exercise, try Frisbee golf, paddleboating, playing tag.

7.  Intentionally pick friends who support you.  Remember the ABC's of friendship -

• A - Always encourage you

• B - Believe in you

• C - Correct and sharpen you

• D - Don't tell others about your mistakes

Pick the tip that will help you the most and focus on it this week.  You can do this!