I’ve recorded this email as a video as well. You can find it on Facebook or Instagram.
It feels like there’s some hint that life may start to return to normal, although we’re not there yet – there is some time now to take a look at how you want your approach to health and fitness to change for the future before your brain gets filled up with all the things it was filled up with before!
We’ve been waiting for the green light to get back on with life as it was before – but, if your approach to health and fitness wasn’t working for you before, do you really want to rush back to that?
With just a few ideas in mind but no proper plan, we are all at the risk of going back to doing what we’ve always done – eating the same way, doing the same workouts, forgetting to prioritise things like down time and sleep.
Lasting habit change is HARD – it requires constant thought to make a change until it becomes automatic, just like our current habits are. And before we have to re-join the world again, it seems like a good time to give the changes we’d like to make the attention they need. In fact, it might be the best chance you’ll ever have.
So. Where to start? My advice is to keep things really simple – there’s no need to change your entire life. Just a few small changes can add up a lot.
Think about what you have really missed from your ‘old life’, and think about what you have enjoyed over the last couple of months of being at home. It might help to think of the things you’ve turned to over the last few months to keep yourself occupied – did you rush out into the garden? Did you start cooking more meals from scratch? Perhaps you struck up a new love of walking?
Also think about the things you have NOT missed from your ‘old life’, and the things you haven’t enjoyed about being at home more.
Then, do the obvious and think about how you can maintain the good things, and reduce (or maybe eliminate) at least some of the other things. Consider how you can keep these changes for the long term, which might include working out how you could negotiate situations you know are likely to be difficult.
And that’s it. It sounds like a mission, but it won’t take much time. I’d be delighted to hear how you get on.