Forgetting to mind
You’re reading this on Smart Healthy Women because you're looking for something, you want to develop, you’ve been attracted to it because you have a need. Life in the 21st Century is very busy, with mobile phones, internet – we’re a 24 hour 7 day a week society. Yet there is feeling that we need to get back to basics – something we’ve forgotten especially as women, a focus on living in the present rather than in the past or future or in super duper drive!
We all do it, life is getting pretty rubbish and there’s a moment, “the straw that breaks the camel’s back” where we decide it’s time to make some changes in our life. So we start to look up resources on the internet, find and subscribe to newsletters, podcasts and even magazines (like Smart Health Women).
Then we get really excited, there’s lots of shiny information out there, “Ooo – I’m going to start to do meditation“, the list can be endless. We go out at full pelt and start to put all of these techniques into practice. Then we see the latest diet, oh, I could do with losing a few pounds, kilos, stones, let’s do this too.
There’s lots of motivation, excitement, there are all these new things, and the enthusiasm is magnificent.
Sometimes there is a mix of the new with the old. There are exciting shiny activities which we’ve forgotten; at some point meditation was a part of the day as was drinking more water. Then we read something about the benefits of drinking 3 litres of water a day and all of a sudden we randomly start drinking 3 litres (and going to the loo a lot).
These are all challenges we set ourselves and we often run at them with great exuberance.
At the same time, the busy life continues, work, children, friends, the demands on our life remains. These new changes almost sit outside of our lives and we continue to juggle keeping everything else the same whilst trying all these new shiny improvement activities. As time passes and we continue to care for everyone around us we start to forget what we are doing for ourselves as we have a strong desire to support and help those around us.
Does this sound like you? How does it make you feel as you circle round and round?
Do you find you feel frustrated as you keep repeating the same pattern?
Well I want to say to you that even though you may feel like you are repeatedly going round and round, you are not. Each time as you work on yourself you move forward (in varying degrees), you are never right back at the beginning, change has already happened from the first, second, third time, each time it gets easier, it's like climbing up the mountain, enjoy the view.
Each time as women we are prioritising ourselves it’s a particular challenge as we are often stuck in the belief that we have to sacrifice our own lives, self, sanity in order for others to be successful and happy. However by building a practice of prioritising ourselves we increase our capacity to support our loved ones in a much more productive way. We can be an example to our daughters/nieces of how showing up as themselves is the most amazing way to contribute to the world we live in.
In essence the more whole we are (and by whole this is whatever it needs to be for you, no one else) the more we are able to contribute successfully to the lives of those individuals who are in our lives, whether it be partner, child, employee, friend.
If you are in a place of stress, with no sleep, sacrificing your own health and well-being, living your life through everyone else, how can you:
• Be the example you want to be to those in your life and
• Have the energy to support and help others?
3 tips for success
• Set a DREAMY and REALISTIC GOAL for yourself, then break it down into stages – use a big piece of plain paper and brainstorm. Breakdown the areas of your life, for example health & fitness, personal development, career and relationship. Then brainstorm (with the knowledge you have now) what you need to do to achieve the goal (or goals). At this point you may not have come across all the different techniques, as you read and learn and see those shiny techniques, go back to your goal list (brainstorm) and make sure that the technique supports what you are aiming to achieve. I like to use lots of coloured, sparkly pens.
• Pick ONE area of your life to work on at a time. Then keep it even simpler and pick ONE or TWO (max!) of the techniques/actions. There are reasons for this approach, if you do lots of things, you never really know what works and what doesn’t and you risk overwhelm. If you break it down and it doesn’t work you can do something else, or make tweaks. Overwhelm will often lead to a loss of desire and motivation, keeping motivated and enthusiastic is a great way to reach your goals.
• The POWER OF PRACTICE: do not underestimate the power of practice. The more you do something the more integrated into your day to day life it will become. Whenever you are practicing and keeping on applying do so with a sense of experimentation, that way you will really learn what techniques work for you, which need tweaking and which you need to leave behind so you can free yourself up to do something which works.
BONUS TIP
• Set up a reminder to practice, to revisit goals, and put it in the calendar on a monthly/quarterly basis. This is a brilliant practice to create for yourself. I work on the basis of being kind to my future self, so that I create success from the beginning when I am enthusiastic. I apply it in many areas of my life and suggest that if you apply it too, i.e as you are doing daily tasks think what could I do right now which will help me in the future it will bring you many rewards. In this case it will help you review and reflect so you can work out what is working and what isn’t .
About the author
After years of dieting, with little confidence and at her heaviest weight Emma decided to love herself lender, a practice which continues today. Emma's interest expanded and she soon realised a desire to help others; combining personal experience with NLP training Love Me Slender was born.
Love Me Slender provides an alternative to the quick fix diet, combining a love of food and an immense curiosity about the human mind. Love Me Slender works with the whole person, the mind, body and spirit encouraging a strong practice of fun and experimentation.
Emma believes there are 6 Essential Ingredients to Loving Yourself Slender and takes the best bits from dieting, combining with a whole person approach to support achievement and understanding of individual goals.
