As we get further into September the topic of ‘getting back on track’ is on my mind a lot. For many people it’s time to say good bye to relaxed schedules, vacations & family barbecues. It’s time to dive into the new season and often times that means a renewed interest in chasing wellness goals.
When it comes to healthy habits and making them stick one school of thought is that every time you quit and start over you bring with you the baggage of being a quitter. I want to take some time today to unpack that a bit.
I absolutely agree that it’s common when starting over to drag with us the mindset that we’ve failed before so we’ll probably fail again. As a health coach I remind people often that they want to keep showing up because starting over can be so hard! But here’s the thing, we’re human and stumbles happen. What if we looked at those stumbles not as failures but as part of the process? What if those stumbles just mean we still trying and we’re human?
We can take our past attempts and learn from them. Use them as knowledge not as a source of shame. And we can shake them off if we choose to.
Insert running related lesson. For those of you that know me, this happens a lot and to my children; sorry, not sorry.
On a long run recently I was beginning to feel fatigued so I tried something new with my mindset. I’m currently employing run/walk intervals in my training so every time I started to run again I thought to myself, “Let go of the previous miles, you’re warmed up and just getting started and you have all the energy you need.” It was a game changer for me! I used that mind hack for miles 10-14 and felt so much better!
Maybe as you get restarted with whatever goal you’re working on you can take the lessons from the past, shake off the guilt and shame associated with stopping and be all warmed up and ready to launch!