Do you ever look back at your life and think, what if I had chosen to do something different? Man when I think about all of the decisions I’ve made in my life it is overwhelming.
There are definitely some big decisions that I’m super grateful for, but the tiny ones that I make on the daily without second guessing, those are the ones that sometimes scare me. Not in the sense of having to make them day in and day out but truly the impact they have on our lives without even thinking about it twice.
As a health coach we spend a lot of time working with clients to regain their control over their decisions. So often we make choices with no thought of the consequences that follow. For example, take a Big Mac. Most people know that having one Big Mac today will not give you diabetes tomorrow. But so often we choose that because it’s quick and easy and for most people satisfying. I’m probably in the minority when I say I’ve never been a fan of them so I have no problem choosing something else. But anyways, that one decision of having that can send you spiraling down a hole of choices that lead you to an unhealthy body.
And on the flip side, eating one salad today doesn’t make you skinny tomorrow. Lifelong health is all about betting on the long game. What choices can you make on a day-to-day that will impact your life on a positive note versus negative.
Those small incremental choices done over a long period of time pays off in the long haul. It’s the compound effect. Sooner than later you build on those healthy choices and sooner than later you realize you’re 3 years in at your healthy weight. And not by restricting yourself but by truly living in a healthy state.
Would you believe me if I told you we grew up on fast food and skipping breakfast. Welp, we did. And it’s not that my parents didn’t cook for us, they did when we were eating dinner at home. But running 4 kids around to their different activities didn’t really provide the opportunity to eat well. And as for breakfast… I just skipped it because I didn’t want to have to get up early.
It was just our lifestyle. On-the-go-all-the-time.
By the time I started training at the gym I had some pretty bad habits. FOrtunately for me, I worked in the health industry so I was able to slowly create habits that better suited my desire to be healthy.
These days, I look at the bigger picture, my whole health. Mind included. And can I tell you, the choices I’ve made in the past have not always been the best. I’m not ashamed of my choices (anymore) but more or less they are just choices that I made unaware of the effect they would have on my life.
I think the hardest part of making the decisions we make is that we often are moving so fast through life that it’s a challenge to slow down to ask ourselves, how will this affect my future. The other difficulty is that unless you know where you’re going, it’s hard to know how it will affect you.
I don’t know why or when I stopped dreaming but I did. Maybe somewhere down the line I thought that I should be happy with where I’m at. I should be content with what I have. BUt the truth is, I’ve always wanted more because if someone else had it, why not me? When did everyone start believing more wasn’t possible?
I feel like these past few days have been a lot of mindset talks… but I guess you can say it’s what is our biggest challenge in life and its something that doesn’t get talked about often enough.
The next few days of writing I’ll be doing it from a hotel in Denver, so my goal is to write something other than mindset stuff! Haha but we’ll see what comes out of my fingers tomorrow when I sit down to write!