Happy New You! This is the time of year I have clients contacting me with ambitious goals, a spark of excitement in their voices and hope in their hearts, a New Year a new them. They’ve read my book or similar over Christmas and are ready to get their life on track, start again…
I ask them first to stop and step back, to look at what they have right now and find the benefits the positive things they are grateful for in their lives before they start. In seeking the new, in searching for what you want to be, you must have some element of understanding of where you are and how you got there.
For me this became very personal in the last six months. My book was launched I had 100% positive reviews, great PR and awesome feedback. And yet a sense of failure sat within me as I wasnt living all that I teach. I worked with many mums on their ability to juggle their lives and begin to find themselves again after struggling with being just ‘mum’. And yet financial necessity, poorly boys and my immune system giving up after 4 years of not enough sleep, led me to over commit, get run down and lose my ability to be grateful for what I have. The more I gave away of my time, the more run down I got. I was coaching people on finding their energy their joy and I was losing mine, and fast.
I set a goal of re-discovering my health vitality and fitness in 2012, but first needed to take stock of how I had got to where I was.
Breaking habits, life long ways of being is possible, but it is not instant or simple. My habit was to do too much, get run down and get poorly. I needed to step by step follow my own goals and start giving myself space and time to balance all the work.
One thing 20 years of workng on belief change have shown me, promises of instant permanent results will NOT WORK! You need to systematically work out what you want, why you haven’t managed to get it already, and what it is that stops you from getting it now. Only by being aware of the barriers we create for ourselves can we overcome them.
For me it is a sense of failure, I am afraid to fail. You will know that I encourage you to overcome your fears, lean into them and face them full on, now it’s time for me to do that yet again. I want to be fit and healthy, filled with vitality and to have confidence in my ability to stay well. I’m afraid of more work, more effort and more exhaustion, when I know in reality more exercise and healthier eating will actually create more energy. So I have to after 20 years of failed diets, get over my fear of failing and give getting fit and healthy a go.
My personal barriers are; “Oh its winter, too cold to go out and exercise, I like my warm comfort food.” “I’m not obese or terribly un-fit it will wait.” “What if I try and fall at the first hurdle, it’s easier just staying as I am, I’m not that unhappy…” We can talk ourselves out of anything, and fast. We can find a justification/excuse lie to make us feel better and not change. Only by finding the lessons that our inability to achieve before, can teach us ,can we move on. I am! I am truly grateful for a body free from disease, able bodied and well, but I am not healthy and full of energy and my body deserves that.
So, before you embark on your “New You for 2012!” Ask yourself, honestly, what has stopped you achieving your goals and dreams in the past, be grateful for what those reasons and fears brought you and then with me, move forward one step at a time towards where you want to go. Keep me posted and we will start with a newer version of us this year.
