Episode 5: Creating YOUR Health and Wellness Vision

You know you want to stop reaching for the brownies every time you feel stressed. You want to stop staying up late, endlessly scrolling, and feeling exhausted in the morning. Often we know what we don’t want, but how often do you consider what you do want when it comes to your health and wellness routines? Creating a vision is a foundational tool to help you design magnetic and inspired goals that you can’t wait to put into action. Today’s episode gives you everything you need to establish your own health and wellness vision and start making positive changes.

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! Welcome to this week's episode of The Compassionate Wellness Podcast. Today, I am excited to talk about a tool that I use with every single one of my clients. It is one of the first things we do in coaching and very foundational to any kind of behavior change, but specifically health and wellness. That tool is creating a health and wellness vision.

I want to start by saying that I am fully aware that sometimes (I would say most times) the desire for change sprouts from a negative place. We hit this moment where something has to change. We cannot continue feeling the way that we've been feeling, and that is what often spurs us into making a change. I really want to honor that. I feel like that is a sacred space; it's a hard space to be in. It's hard to feel at the bottom and know you need something to be different.

I also know that negative head spaces don't lead to sustainable change. While it spurs that initial moment of saying, "Yes, something is going to be different, I'm going to do things to change," that negative headspace, that feeling of being at the bottom only represents half of the equation.

We know what we don't want to do and the trouble becomes figuring out what we do want to do. Oftentimes, when we're starting to change, all we know is that we can't stay in that same place. We can't be where we were, something has to be different. But there's kind of this void when it comes to what we're working towards. That's really where creating a health and wellness vision comes into practice and that's why we do it at the very beginning. It's not enough to know what you don't want; you also have to know what you do want.

Some of the benefits of having a vision...it's really important for sustainability. It's very motivating. When you focus on what you don't want to happen, you're playing defense. You are pushing behaviors away, and putting your energy into control. You're saying "I don't want that", but of course, when I tell you "don't think of a purple elephant", the first thing we see is a purple elephant. You've probably heard that example before, right? Focusing on what we don't want, puts us in that space where we don't want to be. When you're focused on what you do want to happen, you're playing offense. You're attracting behaviors to you. It feels a lot more magnetic, and it helps pull you towards a change. Rather than feeling like you're pushing a change or pushing behaviors away from yourself.

I have been watching a lot of hockey recently. It is the Stanley Cup, and the Golden Knights are in the Stanley Cup Finals, so we are watching a lot of hockey at my house. One thing I've noticed is that when my team, the Knights, when they are on defense, when they are by their own goal, and the other team is attacking, it's exhausting, right? You're invested and you're watching and it's tiring. You're like, "please just get out of here. I don't want this to happen. We need to just get out of here". It's hard. It's hard as a fan. I'm sure as a player, I've never played hockey, but I'm sure that's hard to when you're playing defense. It's hard and it's exhausting and it takes from you.

I compare that to when my team is at the goal. When we are pushing and trying to score and it's close. There's still that melee happening. It's the exact same situation, just the opposite side. It's very energizing, it's exhilarating. It's hopeful. The energy is high, and it feels sustainable, because you're excited about it. To me, that really shows the benefits of having a vision and how motivating it is. It's a completely different feeling, even though the actions are the same whether you're on defense or on offense, the teams are just flipped, right?

You're either focusing on what you don't want or focusing on what you do want and the feeling is very different and the energy you're able to put into it is very different.

(I just want to also say I know very little about hockey. So if that didn't make sense. I apologize it's just what came to my mind as I was preparing this today.)

Having a vision also helps us feel sustainable with behavior change, because it gives us some direction. When we know what we don't want, and something interrupts our plans, it feels like a failure. When we know what we're working towards, and something interrupts our plans, we can pivot because we know the end goal. We know we can keep things flexible, and that we can keep our options open. There's still a way to achieve it, rather than believing the thing I didn't want happened, so it's a failure.

Health and wellness visions are also very personalized. Focusing on what we want helps us to define and discover what really aligns with our own values. So often, we are told what we should want. We are told what health and wellness looks like, what that definition must include. Part of creating your own health and wellness vision is defining that for yourself, and taking a moment to pause and say, "what would that look like for me?", regardless of what any other voices tell you,

I want to touch on some of the things that are included in a health and wellness vision, some of the things that we explore through coaching, so that you can start thinking about some of these questions and put together ideas of what you do want to work towards. I want to preface this by saying, it is completely personalized. This is yours, and you have full control to be creative with it. To include other things that I don't mention and to dismiss things that I do mention. This is really for you. Make this something exciting that you're looking forward to.

The first thing that we review, as part of a wellness vision would be to think about your values. We like to get really clear on what is important to you. In order to create something that aligns with your values, to create goals that get you where you want to be, you have to be very clear on what your values are. Values are what keeps you going when you face challenges. This is going to be hard; change is always hard. There's going to be a day that you don't feel like doing whatever actions or behaviors or choices that you do want long term, but it's hard in the moment to make that choice.

Building your goals and your vision around values, the things that are important to you, is going to help you to navigate through that hard time, and to give you that bigger picture that you're working towards.

Some of the questions you might consider when thinking about your values would be:

• How would you want a close friend or a loved one to describe you?

• What kind of person do you want to be?

If you're having a hard time identifying your values, there are a ton of different lists of values. This is a really common exercise. If you just Google "values list", you will see plenty of different ideas where you can go through and circle the ones that that feel meaningful to you and then narrow them down. Usually we try to get the list whittled down to less than five values.

Another thing you may want to consider when creating your vision is your strengths. Recognizing your strengths will help increase your confidence. You can play to those strengths. So considering:

• What are you good at?

• What qualities are you most proud of?

• What do you feel is already going well for you?

• Where where are you excelling?

Build on what is working for you.

The last thing that I'll recommend for including in your vision, would be to consider your desired outcomes and the behaviors associated with those. Knowing the destination is important to any journey. Having that outcome, where do you want to be is an important piece of a vision. The second part of that is acknowledging the behaviors. Don't forget to bring in those specifics. Knowing that you want this desired outcome, consider:

• What results do you hope to achieve?

• What actions are important for you to regularly incorporate to reach that desired outcome?

• What activities bring excitement to your health and wellness?

• What things are going to keep you energized and happy and joyful?

Okay, so you have some ideas of what to consider when creating a vision. Now let's talk a little bit more about what it looks like in practice. How do we create a vision? Writing a vision statement is usually how we do this, which is basically just a description of your best self.

It's recommended that you use "I" statements when you are creating your vision and that you write it in present tense.

So instead of saying something like "she will be comfortable in her own skin", I might say, "I am sitting on the beach, wearing bright colored clothes that make me smile, because I'm comfortable standing out in a crowd."

You also want to keep your vision very unique, this is for you! Don't be afraid to personalize it. You can see in the example I just used, I think feeling comfortable in our in our own skin is something that's common. I think a lot of people want to feel comfortable in their skin. What that looks like, is going to be different for all of us. For me that might be wearing bright colored clothes, and being on the beach. That's envisioning a moment where I feel comfortable in my skin. Consider what is truly important to you, what aligns with your values, and then be descriptive of what that looks like.

I'd also say not to rush it. Be thoughtful. Make revisions. This can take time to do and it's not always just a one time exercise. You may come across things in your journey that feel important to incorporate, and you can always edit and revise and add to your vision statement.

When you're creating your vision, you also really want to focus on the details. Make it almost like a visualization, where you can sit and view what you're talking about. It's not just a list of what's important to you. Think about:

• What are you doing as your best self?

• Who are you with?

• What are you wearing?

• Where are you?

• What does it feel like to be that person that you've become?

• What is your mood?

• How is your attitude?

• What activities do you do?

• How do you approach challenges?

Get specific on seeing that image and making the vision as real as possible. Once you have that vision, bring it to life. Write it down. Write it in a journal, hang it up somewhere that you can reread it. You could also create a visual. In the old days, they used to do like..."the old days", I'm dating myself...we used to cut out things from magazines and make a vision board. If you have magazines, you could do that. If you don't, I know people will use Canva or a Pinterest board, something where you can put the visuals of what you see in that health and wellness vision and what feels important to you. That's also something you could print out or put it on, maybe your phone background or your computer background. Really focusing on bringing it to life so that you have that imagery in your head, and you can feel the emotion associated with that health and wellness vision.

Make this something fun, something that feels creative and enjoyable, and something to look forward to. This is why we focus on visioning and do it at the very beginning of every coaching relationship. It's exciting! It's important that you not only know what you don't want, but that you know what you do want, and that you can create that magnetic approach to your goals that helps to pull you through the hard times.

We all know there's going to be a hard times. There's always a hard day. There's something unexpected that pops up. That's to be expected and part of the process. Starting with a health and wellness vision helps to pull you through that. It helps to get clarity on your own values, know what's important to you, and why this change matters, which is essential to be able to making a change that's going to last you through the hard times as well.

Thank you so much for joining me for this week's episode. I'd love to see if you create a vision board so send it to me if you make something! I will 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.