Coaching with Heather

Do healthy eating habits make you feel like you’re ‘missing out’?

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Growing up, I didn’t have a concept of healthy eating habits beyond the obligatory vegetable on my dinner plate. Like any child, I wished broccoli would taste like chocolate brownies. Then as I got older, I wished brownies were just 45 calories and contained the cancer-fighting properties of the cruciferous broccoli. 

Even up to a few years ago, healthy eating had a whiff of deprivation for me. But that changed when I started to look at all the foods I “get” to eat. Have you ever had those little orange tomatoes fresh from the farmers market? If I’d had those as a kid I may never have “needed” so much chocolate.

Of course you can think about all the energy you’ll have, and how great that pair of jeans will fit if you can just stick with your healthy eating habits. Creating a clear picture of how fit and strong you’re becoming, imagining yourself looking and feeling fantastic, is great motivation. 

But there’s that part of our brain that likes instant satisfaction, and thinking about those results can feel too vague and certainly not “instant.” So thinking about all of the delicious healthy foods we get to eat provides that spark of immediate enjoyment.

And I learned not to expect a sweet, juicy strawberry to give me the same feel-good dopamine spike as mint chocolate chip ice cream. It’s a different level of satisfaction. Like the difference between marriage and that initial dating phase.

Staying on track with healthy eating habits requires balancing brain chatter and temptation with your desire for losing weight, and this is one strategy that really helps me and my clients. When you not only focus on the healthy foods that you really like, but make sure to have them readily available and incorporate them regularly into your daily fare, you will feel more satisfied. And the more satisfied you feel, the less you feel deprived.

In fact, I can’t remember the last time I felt like I was missing out.

Photo by Brenda Godinez on Unsplash

How to feel super successful everyday, even when you fail

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How to feel super successful everyday, even when you fail

When we focus on how to succeed, we generally look to the outcome. If we get the outcome we want (like the scale going down) then #winning. If not, #loser.

It’s an outdated view of success. Binary. Winning is left – largely – to chance.

In truth, your success depends on your willingness and ability to recognize all of the ways that you are winning. 

Please do not gloss over that last sentence. Both willingness and ability are critical to you feeling super successful every day, no matter the outcome you achieve. Let’s break them down:

Willingness means not holding yourself to perfectionist standards. Maybe taking an ugly win. You were going for a 20 lbs weight loss this past quarter. You lost 3. Take the win. Acknowledge what you did to get there. Congratulate yourself that you didn’t gain 3, which was your past trajectory. 

Yes, assess the failure. Learn. Refocus. Retool. And go again. But go into it feeling like Serena Williams who knows she’s a winner, even when she’s lost a tournament.   

Ability is looking for what you might not normally think of as a success. Say you picked up that glazed donut and ate three quarters of it before coming to and thinking “whoa, what happened here?!” and put the remainder in the trash. You might be tempted to feel bad about what you did eat. Instead, take the kudos for stopping when you could have wolfed down the last few bites (do you know how hard that is?!). 

How to feel super successful everyday, even when you fail
Photo by Giorgio Trovato on Unsplash

Take 47 seconds now and come up with five ways you’re winning today. Like you…

  • Ordered a grande instead of a venti
  • Took a 4-minute walk instead of scrolling to pass the time
  • Responded with grace and understanding to the complaining coworker you’re not fond of 
  • Walked the two flights of stairs to your office, even when the elevator opened right in front of you
  • Stopped halfway through a bag of Cheetos and put the rest away

If you want to know how to succeed it starts here, with recognizing all of the ways you are already winning. When you come from the place of being successful, you prepare yourself for successful outcomes. You are more likely to take the actions necessary to achieve your goals when you feel like a winner. 

Another way to win more…have a Strategy Session with me. Let’s talk. 

7 Ways I’ve Made My Life Ridiculously Easier

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7 Ways I've Made My Life Ridiculously Easier

Want to make life easier? I do. But not just easier. I only want to make life easier if it also makes life better and creates a healthier outcome. Because sure, it’s easier to let dirty dishes stack up in the sink day after day, but the eventual cockroach infestation is a big turn off.

In my life, I’ve found a number of ways to make things easier that I want to share with you: 

  1. Calm the self-critic: Berating myself for mistakes was exhausting. Now when I get something wrong, I acknowledge that it sucks, then remind myself that it’s perfectly human to mess up, and give myself grace (thank you, Kristen Neff, for this cool exercise). The mental energy I save is liberating.
  2. Plan food and follow through: This saves drama and makes it 10x easier to not overeat or make food choices driven by emotion. Deciding ahead of time means I’ve taken into consideration the things that are important to me (health, stamina, taste) and I don’t have to spin and wonder what to eat, or second-guess my plan. Do this and you can trust your choices were made from love for your future self and a desire to be your best.
  3. Let people be who they are: I want to change my husband’s behavior. And people I work with. Some family members, too. Come on, I’m a coach. I have great ideas that will make life better if they just listened to me. Turns out, people don’t like to be coached against their will. (Or told what to do by anyone.) I may have influence in the lives of people around me, but not control. I trust that someone may know something I don’t, and have a better understanding or approach than I do. I relax when I let go of the mental scheming of trying to change someone else and allow them to have their own journey.
  4. Stay focused on the task at hand: One small way I’ve done this is with my morning getting-ready-routine. I used to break away midway through the first coat of mascara to check email or start breakfast. Inevitably my attention was drawn away for longer than planned. Task switching wastes time and, more importantly, saps your brain’s energy. 
  5. Allow people to be disappointed: In a desire to please others, we fib. We don’t want to go to that function or do that thing, but instead of politely saying so we make up excuses, which feels icky. And we have to keep the excuses straight. Or, we give in and do it, grumbling inside. Trying to manage how other people feel is draining and takes away from anything productive or relaxing you may want to do.
  6. Get it out and schedule it: Clients tell me it’s overwhelming to continually carry over to-do’s they don’t complete, or have 17 tasks in their head that they keep “remembering” need to get done. The minute I notice something nagging at me, I realize it’s only in my mind. Right away I get it on paper and calendar it. Relief! And I don’t plan 13 hours or work for an 8-hour day, or allow tasks that are weeks out to get continually copied onto the next to-do list. They are scheduled and forgotten, until I need to do them. 
  7. Love the toddler, but don’t give her the wheel: My toddler brain acts up often. Like when it’s time to shut down social media and she begs to scroll. Or when I take out stir-fry ingredients to prepare dinner and she argues that pizza is better and quicker. Whenever I allow my toddler to take the wheel, regret follows. Because I didn’t accomplish what I wanted, which means I didn’t keep my word to myself. I’ve learned to acknowledge my toddler and understand why she wants what she wants, but then let her know I have a different plan. And I’m sticking to it. 

I know my seven ways to make life easier are not quick hacks. You’ve probably employed all the easy ones and you don’t need me for that. 

And yes, these take focus and effort to implement. But I promise that if you cultivate the mindset shifts and habits I offer, your life can be ridiculously easier in all areas. By the way, coaching can help with that. 

7 Ways I've Made My Life Ridiculously Easier
Photo by Kristin Brown on Unsplash

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