The Real Reason You Can’t Get Started On Your Health Goals

When I first started massage therapy school I knew a truth: I was going to have to get fit in order to sustainably do massages. Massaging people takes energy!

It is definitely a high effort thing to do and when I first started massage school I had trouble climbing the stairs without huffing or puffing! So this was a problem that needed correction fast.

It meant though that I needed to get on an exercise regimen and also work on my eating habits, life style changes. These were two things that were difficult for me at the time because I was battling depression and beginning my recovery journey from addiction. It was a lot to take on at one time and I didn’t quite have a handle on what to do to reach the goal of "get fit".

The first thing that clicked for me mentally was something my therapist mentioned multiple times and it finally sunk in, “start small”. I wanted to have the guns and strong legs in like 2 hours! Which was totally unreasonable, obviously, and since I couldn’t immediately get what I wanted, I needed to focus on what ‘could’ be done instead.

I started with a 15 minute circuit routine in my bedroom. I literally did pushups, squats, bicep curls, and various ab exercises for a circuit and then repeated it. And as I got fitter I added more circuits. Eventually I was exercising for 45 minutes and doing high intensity cardio and resistance band training!

This change, this lifestyle change, only happened because:

* I started small in terms of the amount of activity

* I stayed consistent with my activity

* I kept my expectations reasonable as I journeyed toward better fitness

"Well the first thing that clicked for me mentally was something my therapist mentioned multiple times and it finally sunk in, “start small”."

Now here’s the thing; life style changes are tough for a reason. Your mind and your body LOVE to conserve energy, and when you’re making a change to your schedule and activities you resist your own efforts. Your body and brain are trying to protect you and yet...it’s a bit frustrating, right?!

There are some tools that help the push and pull between your desire to create a lasting lifestyle change and natural self-sabotage.

Find Your Motivation

It’s really, really hard to make any change without a strong motivation. No matter how rational or helpful the new health goal is, if you don’t have a strong emotional reason behind it, you can rest assured that the goal is likely to be unmet.

It’s crucial to identify why you want a thing. For instance I wanted to be fit to increase my endurance for my massage clients because...it helped me do a good job and be paid well. My emotional incentive was joy and feeling financially secure. These are strong motivators. You need to find out what your strong motivators are to help fuel your life style change.

Plan to Bypass Your Self Sabotage

As I mentioned; your body and mind will try to resist you making a change because it requires extra physical and mental power. You need a plan in place to help you stick to your assigned activities. For me, I couldn’t wake up early in the morning to workout, it just wasn’t happening. But I did have a 30 minute window in the evening where I could exercise, so I planned to exercise then.

The payoff here was that I wasn’t setting myself up for failure by picking a time to do something my mind and body were surely going to say ‘no’ to and thus sabotage my efforts.

What is your plan of action? What time, place, or people do you need to involve to help ensure that what you want to get done, actually gets done? When you’ve put that plan in place it becomes much harder to beg off and not do the activity related to your life style change.

"It’s crucial to identify why you want a thing...You need to find out what your strong motivators are to help fuel your life style change."

Get Some Accountability

Accountability is huge with goal setting and goal achieving. If there are no consequences for your behavior then it’s hard to stay on track. And I’m not talking about negative self talk or berating yourself for not doing what you said you would do. That’s negative re-enforcement and it’s terrible for reaching goals.

Healthy accountability usually comes a couple of ways (1) you have a partner who you report to, this could be a workout buddy, friend, co-worker or your coach or (2) you can keep a journal or use a digital habit tracker (or a physical one if you like) to see when you’ve completed the daily task.

Both of these things keep you psyched up for doing what you said you would do. And the consequence isn’t extreme - like cratering your self esteem with negative self talk - but it does have bite you’d feel. Like some guilt for disappointing your buddy or a bit of unhappiness at not seeing your task highlighted as ‘complete’.

And on the opposite side, when you’ve been consistent you get positive re-enforcement, which makes it easier to keep going. Your brain and body like feel good chemicals, so they eventually become less likely to sabotage you when there is a positive association with the new activity and lifestyle change.

When you employ these three tools, your odds of reaching your life style change get higher and all of that happens because of proper planning. Your parents or your teachers or your mentor were sooooo right! :-)

Now one more thing, getting motivation, evading self sabotage, and putting in accountability habits aren’t easy either. But they get easier if you’ve really thought your options through. I recommend journaling for a few days to a few weeks to get clear about what you want to accomplish, whether it’s getting fit, changing jobs, reducing your stress, or tackling a major health concern or anything else on your mind.

But another way to do this self reflection process sooner, more efficiently and with a built in accountability partner is utilize a life coach. If you’ve been spinning your wheels and having a hard time just getting started on anything, coaching can help!

Coaching is all about getting clear on your motivations, clearer than you’ve ever been. Seeing the ways you might slip on your own banana peel. Having someone to give you the high five when you succeeded and asks what got in your way if you didn’t, so you’re better prepared to succeed next time around. If a supportive, quicker, and more enjoyable process of self transformation if of interest, don’t be shy reach out below!

Santee Blakey is a Life Coach and Licensed Massage Therapist at Soul Growth Wellness. When she's not biking, reading, or biking, or reading (she needs new hobbies, suggest her some:-), she'll be writing and enjoying a caramel frappacino in her favorite Starbucks (this is obviously pre-Covid) *sigh*. Follow her on Youtube for her series --> Self Acceptance: What It's Really Like (A Journey).

You know what helps you reach a health goal? Having the energy to do it at all! Increase your energy here!