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Transcript
Hey, my friends, welcome to another episode of the pursuit of wholeness podcast. In this episode, I want to talk about a concept I talk about with my clients.
And this is the concept of taking action daily. So, what does this mean? Taking action. Daily is so important because when we are starting something new, it feels exciting, but it also brings lots of effort. It takes lots of effort to plan new things, reconstruct your day, exercise more, change your diet, and learn new cooking skills.
These are all things that take lots of mental effort. And so, when you are starting something new, it’s really easy to start to fall off the wagon or start to make compromises in what you do. And so, I encourage the people I work with to stay focused on this basic concept of taking action daily.
Sometimes the action looks like they are doing. All the things that we have planned are fulfilling all the action steps in the three buckets. So if you listen to my wellness basics series, you heard me talk about the importance of putting effort into three different buckets. The first one is diet, how you nourish yourself.
The second one is consistent movement and. Exercise to practice being strong and confident. And the third one is really working on your mindset. And so, when I’m creating a plan for someone or not, I’m making it; we are creating a plan together that will help them meet their goals. So we always choose action steps from all three of these categories.
And. Then we create an ideal situation. So what does your week look like? What do you do Monday? What do you do Tuesday? What do you do Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday? And we’re very realistic about where they start. Because I always think it’s important to start where you are because if you start if your expectations for yourself are beyond where you are now, you will always feel like a failure.
So we create a plan that starts where they are now but is also very ambitious and ideal. And we always build in some play time, some fun time. Some rest time, because part of the wellness journey is learning how to fully care for yourself, knowing when it’s important to push and plan and strategize.
And when it’s important to just relax and watch TV. Or whatever that means to you. And then we create a little more plan: What do you do when life gets hectic? And then also what are the fundamental things when you are just holding on. And when I send them on their way for the week or the two weeks between the time we see each other, I encourage them to stay as close to the ideal as possible.
But I always. Encourage them to take action daily. And the reason I do this is because life can be kind of hairy. You can have the best intentions to do all the things eat well. And then your kid gets sick, or you have an extra project at work, or your car breaks down, or you’re just not feeling it for the day.
All of those things and more can get in the way of our best intentions. And so what I often see people do is they begin a plan. It begins to get hard. Life starts to get in the way, and they slowly stop taking action. And what this does, is it confirms the belief that many of us have that we can’t do.
That it’s not possible for us. Our hardest work never works. All of those things. Two, it keeps us from practicing. Consistently caring for ourselves. But if we take action daily, this helps us put in the reps. It helps us stay confident and really gain confidence because the action is really what makes us feel more confident in our own abilities.
And it basically just helps us stay committed to our mission to our path. We. Have all, I mean, all of us have had moments where we have started something, and we’re gung-ho, and we’re gonna do it. And then life gets in the way, and it’s two weeks later, and we’re like, what happened? And we try to get back on that horse.
And it is really hard that backslide. It is one of the hardest things that I have found personally and professionally with my clients that it’s so hard for people to get back on, but if you never lose that core, that seed of commitment to yourself and your plan, it makes it much harder to get back up to that a hundred percent.
And so, what does this look like? So, as I said, staying committed to yourself, and taking daily action takes many different forms sometimes. Hopefully, most of the time, you’re able to do the full Sheba. So you are eating well. You’re nourishing your body. You are sticking to your exercise plan. You’re moving daily.
And then also you are practicing some of that mind, body techniques that are going to help you heal your body from the inside out meditation, journaling, yoga, breath, work, whatever that means to. And you’re able to do that every day; some days, as I mentioned, it’s just harder. And so you will have to pull back, but on those harder days, what can you do?
What can you do that will still make you feel good? So say. You have extra meetings, or there was a big traffic jam, and you weren’t able to stop by the grocery store. And so your diet’s just not quite off. Can you still stay committed to your exercise plan and your mindset plan, and then maybe your diet’s not perfect, or you’re going out with friends.
For birthdays, all of these things are completely normal, but how can you stay committed to the things that you can do during the day that can remind you that you are still doing well, you’re still doing the work, and then the next day you can get back to it. There are some days when you just simply don’t have.
And hopefully, you have planned for those days. So when you look at your week, you know that on Wednesday, it’s gonna be going, go, go. And you’re gonna have very limited time. Can you still take time to do breathwork during the day? Can you still stay committed to your morning routine side note? I’m gonna have a full episode on the power of a morning routine, but just for the purposes of this episode, a morning routine is just where you set aside a certain amount of time to create an intentional day.
So can you stay committed to your morning routine? What can you do to just remind yourself that you are still on track, and then when you go to bed that night, You can say today was hard, but I did it? I stayed on track, and I feel really good about continuing my progress. So how to, we’ve already kind of talked about why and why it’s important for you to even when things get hard.
Really take daily action that gets you closer to your goals. We talked about the what, so what does this mean now? We’re gonna talk about the, how, because I never want to give you information and then you’re like, well, how do I make that happen? that all sounds great, but so let me break it down. The hows are.
And this is, of course, different for everyone, but these are the basics. So whenever you start your plan, any plan, it could be a wellness plan, career plan, or relationship plan. But because I mainly talk about wellness, let’s talk about this in the context of a new wellness plan. So whenever you begin. You’re excited.
You have the best intentions. You’re ready to begin. So hopefully, you will have created a detailed plan of what your weeks will look like whenever you make that plan. Also, think about the contingencies and what could get in the way. Don’t go into this expecting things to get in the way. Just have your eye on the side of that curve ball that will be thrown to you because it will; it most definitely will.
So what are the things that could potentially get in the way? And then also think about the. Bare bones of what you feel like you will need every day to keep yourself feeling well for me. This means always making sure I eat some amount of vegetables throughout the day. And then also, I move throughout the day.
This could be simply stretching or going for walks simply. Doing a few squats. This just keeps my body limb and keeps me from getting super stiff, or maybe I’m super sore from a couple workouts before. And I can’t necessarily do the workout that I had planned. Maybe I’ll do some yoga. You can loosely hold your plan.
And still, feel like you are being successful. And in fact, I think that is very important. It’s important to know that you’re able to make changes and feel really good about those changes because that is life. And then also don’t forget to build in rest, vacation, relaxation, all of those things. So one of the conversations that I often have with my clients is that we will create this pristine plan that fits in perfectly with their life.
And they’ll be like, oh my God, I go on vacation in three weeks. and I’m like, no worries. Enjoy your vacation. . What are the basic things you can do during your vacation that will help you feel like you’re still staying on track so that when you get back, you feel really good about your progress you can.
Get back to your new normal; your new normal is this new you who is getting stronger, nourishing your body, and really working on reframing and recreating your internal environment. But while you’re on vacation, I want you to. Enjoy all the gelato you can. And I want you to sleep in and do all the things that you are really looking forward to because that is also really important is to enjoy life.
The whole purpose of wellness. I believe. Is to live a rich, whole, fulfilling life. And some of that is fun. Some of that is hard work, and we have to allow ourselves to be in those various stages. In our life, to really live a full life, going back to the how-to, you have created this pristine plan that fits into your day.
Most of the time, then you’ve created a plan. That is your; what do I have to do today to feel really good? And then every day, At night, hopefully, you are going to reflect on your day. How was today? What worked well? What didn’t work? Well, I wasn’t able to do anything that I really had planned to do. Why not?
And this isn’t the opportunity to be like, ah, such a loser. I can’t believe you did that. You always do this. This is simply a time of reflection. Remember? Failure. It is data. It is simply information that we can use to do better next time. And you will do better next time. If you don’t allow yourself to get into the mental barrage of negative thoughts that reinforce these beliefs, you can’t do it.
And sometimes life is just really challenging. and the most we can do is five minutes of breathing. The most we can do is five minutes of stretching before bed. The most we could do is think about man; I wish I could have some vegetables with my dinner. That is the reality. But if we can remind ourselves that we’re committed.
Even though we have these quote-unquote bad days and you’ve done just one thing to care for yourself than tomorrow. It’s easier to get back on track. And if tomorrow you notice that it has gotten harder and the next day it’s gotten harder. It’s time to really take a pause and understand what has changed.
What has gotten really hard for you? Could it have been that the plan that you created this pristine plan was maybe a little too much for where you are now? That’s totally fine by giving yourself grace and modifying what you’re doing that is not. Loser talk is simply giving yourself the grace to grow and learn in your life today.
So you can be stronger and better tomorrow. And that’s the goal. The goal is not to be perfect every day. And if you are not perfect, you. Have missed the mark. The point is to be better than you were yesterday, so you can progress to the best version of yourself over time. And that is sustainable. And that is more fun, too, because when we give ourselves the space to learn and grow without judgment and without condemnation, we.
Can learn what fits us better. We can learn what doesn’t fit us. And we can also get curious about how this could be more fun and how this journey could be more fulfilling. So if you have decided that you’re going to run. Every day and that’s your pristine plan, and you’re gonna run, you’re going to train for that marathon, but it becomes really stressful and not fun.
And you hurt yourself, and you keep running, and it is like, This drudgery session every single day, pause and think to yourself like, Ugh, maybe this isn’t what I should be doing. Maybe I like to walk, or jog. Maybe a marathon is just not realistic. I thought it would push my buttons. I thought it would feel really good, but I just really don’t like it.
What else can I do? Maybe I’m gonna try doing it. Dance or maybe I’m going to try some spin classes or maybe I just like walking, and I want to no longer run because I miss walking with my friend. Whenever we give ourselves grace, we allow ourselves to be curious about what could work better. When we learn what works better for us today, that is able to be sustained for a longer period of time.
And that’s the goal. The goal is growth, not perfection. So today, we have talked about the importance of taking daily action. Not being perfect every day, but simply taking daily action to remind you that you can stay committed to your goals. Even when life gets kind of tough. I hope you have enjoyed this short little episode today.
And. Have enjoyed this podcast so far; it has been really fun to think about these different concepts and think about how I can best share them with you. And if you have other ideas of what you would like me to talk about, what you would like me to maybe expand upon topics that I’ve already discussed, please let me know.
Hop over on Instagram, Sally dot 12. Slide into my DMS. Let me know what you’re thinking. You can also get on my weekly email list by going to my website. It’s linked in the show notes below every week. I send out a short newsletter, and I talk about my podcast. Uh, maybe what’s going on in my life. Any new protocols that I have released it’s just really simple and fun.
Mostly short emails that I send out to, uh, you guys. So please join me there, and as always, thank you so much for joining me on this pursuit of wholeness podcast. I wish you so much joy, love, and peace in your own pursuit of wholeness. Thanks again. Bye.
