Do you feel like you run into obstacles as soon as you start to eat healthier and exercise?
No matter how many obstacles you run into, what matters is that you’re able to overcome each of them, one at a time.
“2 steps forward, 1 step back” is usually a negative way to describe someone having trouble making progress. Switch it around! “1 step back, 2 steps forward”. Instead of beating yourself up or feeling guilty about a misstep, you still come out ahead! Be kind to yourself and take time to process.
Steps back can take many forms: a family vacation, breaks in your routine, personal tragedies, injuries, or a lost weekend in front of the tube. The biggest mistake I see when people are trying to live more balanced and develop healthy habits is when they fall off a bit or something happens, they think they “have to start over”.
This is not true my friend.
Take two steps forward. You’re still ahead of where you were, far beyond the starting line. If you expect perfection (and many of us do), you’re setting yourself up for disappointment and guilt. This is debilitating to the development of your healthy habits.
Overcoming obstacles of creating healthy habits can be challenging. When you feel like you have messed up (or even when things are messed up for you), it’s natural to feel guilty. At that point, you have a choice: let that guilt plummet you into a cycle that could spit you out worse off than before, or to accept the step back and say “where do I go from here?”
Use it as a learning process. Ask how can you keep the misstep from happening again? Look at your day to day life, schedule, routines, habits and see why it’s allowing those landmines to stick around. Ask how can you keep that misstep from happening again?
5 Tips on Overcoming Obstacles of Creating Healthy Habits
- Have a personal affirmation that will re-energize you. Post it in key areas you see every day!
- Return to the basics. Are you making it too complicated and tough on yourself?
- Plan ahead for irregularities in your schedule, look at menus ahead of time, pack snacks.
- Stay aware of what you’re doing. Remind yourself of your success so far when you need a boost.
- Set realistic expectations. Life happens. The intention isn’t for you to be “perfect,” that isn’t balanced or healthy anyway. Set realistic expectation of bringing awareness to your obstacles and learning from them on how you can approach them in a more balanced manner. What does balance look like for you. This can soften the harsh feelings and thoughts of the challenging times because you now expect them and you have a plan.
Kick the negative thoughts out and let the positive healthy forming energy in!!!
If you found this article helpful, check out 3 Steps to Overcome Emotional Eating
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