Coaching Corner: “Will”-power

I often ask my coaching clients, “What can you do or do differently to get closer to your goal?” Most people are very good at coming up with a laundry list of things that they could, should or would do. They sound like this: “I should eat less candy, drink more water, get more exercise, cook for myself,” etc., etc. Knowing what to do is rarely the issue. It’s “just doing it” that often stumps us.

Then comes the more difficult question, “What will you do today, tomorrow, this week?” That’s when the stuttering and stammering begin. Answers often begin with, “I’ll try… or I hope…” Does this sound familiar? What would it take to eliminate the try and the hope—to make a real commitment to action? You see, there is often an enormous gap in what we can do and what we will do.



Take out a pen and paper and write out three specific actions you are willing to take today that will bring you closer to your healthiest, best self, and start every item with the words “I will.” For example:
• I will walk for 30 minutes after breakfast.
• I will eat two servings of vegetables at dinner.
• I will go to bed at 10 p.m.

Then make sure these three things happen. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. It doesn’t matter how simple the actions are. What matters is that you train your brain to do what you say you will do. Healthy habits are formed through repetition—by making a decision and taking the action, one day at a time.

You have everything you need to achieve your goals. You know what you want and what it takes to get it. So, next time you catch yourself saying, “I’ll try,” or “I hope,” own your power and say, “I will.”

Linda Hopkins is a Coach for the H3@Home program. Click here if you'd like to learn more about this at-home, extension of our weight loss program.

Coaching Corner: 8 questions that will lead you to success

Being a Wellness Coach, I like to stay up with the times. I feel like it is my duty to constantly look for new and ways to ask my clients intuitive questions in hopes that they’ll take a different perspective on their lifestyle goals. Each week I am not only encouraging progress, but looking for new innovative ways to push my clients close to their goals. This week, I came across a recent Ted Talk on the “Secrets to Success,” by Richard St. John and bam! I knew I had uncovered excellent perspective to share in future coaching calls.

So here’s your Sunday Challenge. Watch the 3 ½ minute video below and after you’ve unveiled the secrets of success, ask yourself these 8 questions in the direction of 1 LIFESTYLE GOAL you’re currently working on.  This exercise will help you discover if you’re really doing everything you can to be successful!

1)      Passion – what drives you to meet this current lifestyle goal?

2)      Work – how much fun are you having working toward this goal? In what ways?

3)      Good – how are you practicing to achieve this goal?

4)      Focus – what are your top two focuses in regard to this goal?

5)      Push – are you making excuses or pushing closer to your goal?

6)      Serve – how will hitting this goal add value to your life?

7)      Ideas – what ideas can you come up with right now that will move you closer?

8)      Persist – how are you going to move thru your biggest challenge?

Coach's Corner: If You Can See It, You Can Achieve It

We talk a lot at H3 about setting up your environment for success—making sure you have the tools and items around you to facilitate a healthy lifestyle. It is true that if you build up the space around you to be successful then you are more likely to perform the behavior. Convenience is crucial when it comes to diet, exercise or any other health behavior. We are much more likely to work out if our gym is on the way home from work as opposed to going out of our way to get there. We are more likely to eat healthy foods if that is what we stock our pantry with. It’s hard to find the apple if it is hiding behind the bag of potato chips! If you see something, it is easier to choose that as an option. A great way to set up your environment for success is to make the best options easier to see.

Below are some methods that H3 @ Home members have used to set themselves up for success by placing visual reminders in their environment.

• Place vitamins next to the coffee maker. It’s the first thing most of us stumble to in the morning. Having the vitamins there will increase your chances of seeing them and can making them part of your daily routine.


• Lay out your workout clothes the night before. We call is “laying out your body”. Put on your floor all of the clothes you need the next day for your physical activity (this is most effective when arranged in the shape of your body J). Making it easy to throw them on, as well as remind you in the morning that it’s a gym day!


• One former H3 guest uses their H3 water bottle at work to stay hydrated. It’s a great reminder throughout the day to stay active as well as the commitment made here at H3 to “get serious”.


• The sticky note is a powerful method for placing visual reminders around your environment. Use it to place your goals on the fridge to be reminded throughout the day of what you are working to achieve.

Those are some methods that others have used to visually remind themselves of their commitment to living a healthy lifestyle. What are a few that you can use for some of the goals you have set for your life?

Goal Setting for the New Year

Stop thinking about the past and start thinking in the present!  You’ve set goals before only to watch them fall by the wayside and your passion for change dissipate in a fury of disappointment. 

It’s time we envision a “Manifesto for Change”!  A document so powerful it will influence the decisions you make in everyday life.  A document that manifests  itself in the context of your life.  Finally, a  document so powerful that you derive daily and weekly motivation from visual objects that are constantly reminding you of that relentless passion within.  It is time that the New Year finally produces a “New You.”

First, make sure that you adhere to the S.M.A.R.T principle.  Your goals should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely. 

 

Specific/Measurable – 

Rather than setting the typical weight goal let’s try to focus on something that is behaviorally oriented.  For example, things like your endurance (the time it takes you to walk a mile), flexibility (can you reach and get those fingers past those toes?), exercise consistency, portion control, adherence to multiple small meals per day or number of new culinary additions.  We all thoroughly understand that if we cumulatively change those habits weight loss will inevitably follow.  Secondly, your goal must generate a moment of intense enthusiasm.  The split-second that you are willing to brag about for years.  It might mean completing your first 5k or graduating from that ballroom dancing class.

 

Attainable/Realistic – In a crippling world of Black and White we must create a personal Gray area.  As Malcolm Gladwell clearly illustrates in the book The Tipping Point, “small changes lead to something larger.”  Ancient philosophers may have described it as a sum of the parts.  It doesn’t take a genius to know that an unrealistic goal will be destined for failure.   Would you be happy losing 25-50 lbs in the next six months?  If your answer is yes, then you must be satisfied by a rate seemingly subdued 1-2 lbs per week average rate of weight loss.  Small changes do add up!

 

Timely – As humans we recognize that:  more > less and sooner is better than later.  Those simple equations give rise to the phenomenon we term instant gratification.  Therefore, I encourage you to set 1 month, 3 month, 6 month and 1 year goals.  However, the key is reassessing their progress as they are completed and more importantly understanding that failure is an option.  WHAT?  That’s right, FAILURE IS AN OPTION!  The success we view commonly in society is a product of failure and the innate ability to learn from it.  As your mother may have once told you, “learn from your mistakes.”

 

By now your brain is completely resisting the notion of picking up the pen and writing down what goals will ignite this change.  But, as Parkinson’s Law describes, we are much more efficient when given a shorter period of time.  Consequently, I challenge you to take the next hour to write down your goals. 

Once you have created an empowering document I want you to post it in places you see multiple times per day; the background/screensaver on your computer, the nightstand, refrigerator, and bathroom mirror.  Let’s create an environment that becomes life-altering.  An atmosphere that influences every second of every day.  Your goals sheet may then begin manifesting itself in the form of clothing you dream to fit into, quotes that are plastered on the bulletin board or pictures of yourself from the years you spent neglecting life. 

The “New You” is ready for a journey into self-discovery.  Get to work!