You feel great when you get 8 hours of sleep, yet you continually binge watch Netflix till 1am.
You feel amazing when you eat healthy and nourishing meals, yet you're ordering take-away almost daily.
You know how good movement is for your mental wellbeing. Yet whenever the time for a workout rolls around, you just don't feel motivated to put your exercise gear on and decide to stay on the couch instead.
DO ANY OF THESE SOUND FAMILIAR?
Why is it so difficult to make changes to our lifestyle? The reason often is because there is no urgency to make the change - so it is very easy to postpone making those changes to "tomorrow" or "Monday"....
A lot of people will FINALLY make the changes to their lifestyle and diet that they want to make when they reach a crisis point. Usually it is only when someone gets a diagnosis of diabetes or pre-diabetes, sees some scary blood test results or gets really unwell, that they feel the strong pull, drive and motivation to change.
The vague motivation to improve their health in the long-term (especially if nothing is really that wrong with their health right now), is not a strong enough motivation to make an immediate change.
Of course, maybe someone will still want to change and to look after their health, but they can always postpone this decision and these choices until "tomorrow" or "next week" because there really is no urgency to make the changes right NOW.
So if you want to make changes to your health and lifestyle but don't have any diagnosis or blood tests that are giving you that sense of urgency to make the changes that you want to make - what can you do?
CREATE YOUR OWN SENSE OF URGENCY.
Getting really clear on short-term and long-term benefits of making the changes that you want to make can be helpful but also getting really clear on short-term and long-term what would happen if you don't change anything, can be strong sources of motivation. The more you can find short-term drivers for making the changes that you want to make, the more likely you are to make those changes.
For example, you may want to start going to the gym more frequently but the idea of going to the gym so that you are healthy in 15 years' time just isn't motivating. Instead, imagine the short-term benefits you will get from frequently going to the gym:
You will feel amazing after the workout.
You get some alone time to relax.
You will be able to listen to a podcast or some music that you enjoy.
You will gain confidence in yourself and your body.
You will have more energy.
You can also reflect on what would happen if you never went to the gym:
You will lose strength and muscle mass.
You will continue to feel rubbish.
It will start getting harder to do simple tasks (e.g., carrying groceries, keeping up with your kids).
It will be more difficult to maintain a healthy weight.
Whilst a diagnosis can often scare you into making changes in your life, what we want to create is a big enough WHY for you to feel motivated to make changes before things get really bad.
Thinking through your big WHY and ideally making this both short-term and long-term too, can really help you to find the motivation that you need to make changes in your life.
Often people don't make changes to their lifestyle because there is no urgency to do so. Creating a sense of urgency yourself can really help propel you to make the changes that they want to make.
If you would like some support to make changes to your lifestyle, book a free consultation with me today.
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