Episode 2: Where to Start Your Wellness Journey

Do you struggle to know where to start when it comes to making a lifestyle change? It’s common to feel overwhelmed and conflicted by all the possibilities. However, what if you didn’t have to KNOW where to start. What if you could just start? This episode talks about embracing the unknown, how lifestyle behaviors connect, and 5 questions to ask yourself if you still need some clarity.

Episode Transcript:

INTRO MUSIC: Welcome to The Compassionate Wellness Podcast. I'm Alex Treanor. I'm a Nationally Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach, and I am so excited you're here. The wellness industry is full of do's and do not's, should's and should not's. But I like to take a different approach. I'll be sharing all things health and wellness from a joyful, real-life compassionate perspective. If you're ready to drop the cookie-cutter approach and create a life you truly love, while eating a cookie or two along the way, let's dive in.

Hey, everyone! Thank you for joining me for our second episode. Today, we are talking about the best place to start when making a lifestyle change. Usually when I start working with clients, they have a lot of goals. There's a lot of things they're excited about; they're ready to go. When getting started, the first thing we typically ask will be, "okay, where do you want to start? Let's narrow it down. Let's prioritize". Most often the answer is "I don't know". And that's probably true. They may not know. But, even without knowing where you want to start, you can still choose. You don't need to know, in order to get started.

I want to share an experience that I had recently. I went down to Fremont Street in Las Vegas. If you've ever been to Fremont Street, you know that it is an experience all of its own. There's nothing like it. But we went down there. We were trying to get home afterwards. And we're sitting in the parking garage, so I pull up Google Maps, put in my address, "take me home".

Google Maps was all kinds of confused. It didn't know where we were going couldn't give me a route, was saying all kinds of weird things that didn't make sense to me. So we decided, let's get out of the parking garage and see what happens. So we start looping down all the layers of the parking garage, navigating the maze that that is, and eventually we get to the street level and pull out of the garage just enough where Google does the "recalculating" thing, and gives me a route, and we're on our way.

Oftentimes, when we are deciding where to start, we sit in that parked car waiting for the route to come. Waiting to know, "okay, what's the first step? Where do I need to go? Somebody tell me" and in order for us to find the right route, oftentimes, we need to move the car. You have to move so that Google can find you and say, "I got it. Now I see what we're doing. Let's recalculate. This is where we're going". But without that movement, nothing changes.

The idea is that if we let this concept that we don't know, the "right" place to start, if we let that stop us from ever starting, we're not going to get anywhere, we stay stuck in that parked car. Perfection literally does not exist. I have never met somebody who says are who feels that they have a perfect health and wellness routine. I think it's just this figment of our imagination that there's this magic blueprint that one day will be downloaded into our brains. And now "hey, I've got it. This is perfect. I know what to do". It's just not a thing.

So I just want to say, you literally can't mess this up. No choice is going to be wrong. You can feel comfortable just picking one and moving your car, getting out of the parking garage, and that route will recalculate for you.

If this makes you nervous. Let me see if I can calm your nerves just a little bit. Every lifestyle behavior, all those things you're wanting to accomplish, impact one another. The American College of Lifestyle Medicine recognizes Six Pillars of Lifestyle Medicine. I'll name them quickly. Nutrition, physical activity, stress management, sleep, social connection, and reducing risky substances. All six of those areas are usually where we have goals. I typically work with my clients on the first five. As we take a closer look at those six pillars, I want to point out some of the different intersections and how they relate to one another.

With nutrition, when you are eating plants, when you are eating protein, whole grains, you have more energy to be physically active. We also know it improves our sleep. It can improve our social connections. Oftentimes we let dieting rules things like restriction, or fear of certain foods prevent us from going to social events. We avoid the night out with our friends or the movie because there's going to be buckets of popcorn.

Physical activity is also important. It reduces our stress, improves sleep, builds social connections, especially if you're doing activities with somebody.

Stress Management improves our eating behavior, gives us more time and energy for activity, improves sleep quality, improves social connections.

Sleep also improves our eating behavior, regulates those appetite hormones, more energy to be active, better able to manage stress.

Social connections are important to emotional resiliency. It also decreases our perceived stress, improves sleep.

So you can really see that all of these different parts of lifestyle behavior, impact each other. They're all interconnected.

When I was a kid, I loved going to the Discovery Museum. And I'm going to try to explain something and I'm just praying that you know what I'm talking about, because I'll be honest, I am not known for my skills with describing things. At the Discovery Museum was this platform that you would stand on. And around the platform, there was essentially like a moat of bubble juice, bubble liquid, whatever you want to call it. In that liquid there was a hula hoop, like a bubble wand, but a big one, a hula-hoop-sized bubble wand, that was attached to a rope and a pulley system, and the rope came down above the platform. So the idea, I'm really praying, you know what I'm talking about. Maybe I can post a picture of it somewhere.

Source: http://www.discoverycentermuseum.org/visit/exhibits-overview/418-bubbles

The idea was, you stand on this platform, surrounded by the hula hoop in bubble juice. And then you pull the rope slowly. And the hula hoop rises up. And because it's in the juice, it makes this bubble, basically, a bubble encapsulates you. So now you're standing in a bubble, it was the coolest thing. Hopefully, you had went to Discovery Museum that you went to, because if you didn't, you're missing out, but it was awesome.

Lifestyle habits work like this hoop. You do not have to be touching every part of that hoop for it to raise up to see improvement. All you need to do, is pull one rope, and that whole hoop is going to lift together.

You don't have to change every aspect of your lifestyle, to see improvements in health and wellness. What you need to do is pick one action, focus on it, slowly work on that, and because they're all connected, your progress in that one area is going to make it easier to improve the others. So really, there is no "right" answer for where to start with improving health and wellness. You just pick one, you work on it slowly, and everything elevates together.

With this, it's important to go slow. You may have noticed I had mentioned that. With our bubble platform, if you yank on that rope, the hula hoop just flies up in the air, bounces off the top of the pulley system, sprays juice everywhere, and crashes back down. And I know the little boys liked to do that, particularly the chaotic ones. They just yanked that rope juice everywhere was that whole thing. But that wasn't really the point of the experience. Anyway, when you pull that rope slowly, you literally got to be the stoked kid inside of a bubble. Like how legit is that?! You are sitting in a bubble, it was the coolest thing! And it happens when you go slow and steady, which is also how we go about getting an enjoyable, functional and sustainable health and wellness routine.

So we know the importance of just picking something, and we know there's not a "right" option. So how do we choose? I want to first of all just give you permission that you can just choose. You could just say, "this is the option" and go for it.

If you feel like you need some direction, if you're analytical (I'm an over thinker, so I resonate with this. I want to know the options and weigh the pros and cons.), I'll give you five questions that you can ask yourself to help consider the options.

First would be what feels easiest? There's a lot of research on a concept called self-efficacy, which is your belief in your ability to make a change. That research tells us that getting some wins under your belt inspires confidence and encourages us to keep going. So what feels easiest, what do you know you can accomplish? Get that win under your belt. Success is going to lead to more success. Show yourself that you can make a goal, and you can follow through on it and that will help get some progress going.

The second question I would encourage you to consider is what's going to have the most impact? Which of those behaviors is going to have the biggest influence on you? Which one when you pull that bubble rope is going to lift the highest for you?

The third question to consider what are you most excited about? What sounds fun? Use that internal energy, that zest that you have for it. It is a whole lot easier to follow through on a goal that you like.

Number four, what feels most urgent? If there's something that does feel pressing for you, that could be a good place to start as well. You clearly have some buy-in if it feels urgent.

And number five, what do you have the most support around? Oftentimes, we don't consider this, but support is really crucial to making a change, especially one that is sustainable, something that we can do long term. Having those rallied around us who have similar goals, and similar ideas of what they are wanting to accomplish is so essential. Do you have a friend that you can go for a walk with? Do you have a coworker that does meal planning that maybe you guys could plan together? Use that support.

Whatever you choose, I'm going to encourage you to focus on ONE thing. This is a lot harder than it sounds. You don't need 18 goals. In order to make a lifestyle change. You need one goal that you focus on that connects with everything else, and encourages more and more change and to get some wins under your belt, build that confidence, and continue making progress.

Sometimes we fall into all or nothing thinking:

"I'm going to focus on this goal. This one's my priority. But in the back of my mind, I still want to do all of these other things".

This is where I see a lot of the struggle. If your goal is to be more active, please do not beat yourself up about your eating habits. That's not the goal. Right now we're focusing on activity. With time, you can incorporate those eating habits. But when you're starting, pick one thing and don't beat yourself up for not being able to have a finger on every goal that you're wanting to accomplish. I know that is challenging and easier said than done. But that would be my encouragement for you.

If you still need help figuring this out. There is a link in the show notes to book a call with me I would love to talk it through with you see what we can come up together. As always, I would love to hear your feedback, your thoughts, any questions on this topic. Since this podcast is new for me, and I am still trying to grow my coaching practice, if you could rate and review, share with a friend, anything that you feel inclined to do would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you so much for joining me today. I hope this gives you some ideas on where you can get started. What the best in air quotes place to start is for you. I'll talk to you next week.

OUTRO MUSIC: Thanks for joining me on this episode of the compassionate wellness podcast. If this message resonated with you, please share it with someone you care about. I'd love to connect with you as well follow me on Instagram @alextreanor.coaching, or visit my website alextreanorcoaching.com. And as a reminder, Treanor spelled kind of goofy, it's T-R-E-A-N-O-R. For any references mentioned in this episode, be sure to check out the show notes. I hope you have a wonderful day and don't forget to make time for something you enjoy.

References:

American College of Lifestyle Medicine - https://lifestylemedicine.org/