If you don’t know what Headspace is, it’s an app that guides you through a meditation session with the goal of reducing mental stress in our daily lives by becoming more in-tune with ourselves.
While I have meditated on and off for years, I struggled to stay consistent with it lately even though I always felt great after it and could feel the benefits in my everyday life- why do we struggle with things that we know are good for us!!
After hearing a few clients talk about it I decided that a bit of accountability would do me good so I got started on it and have been finding it really beneficial.
One of the main reasons I mediaitete is simply to de-clutter my head so that I can think more clearly, feel less stressed and be more open to hearing good ideas and concepts that I otherwise mightn’t pick up on.
So last night I was finishing up my Headspace session when the guide mentioned that life can get so stressful and demanding at times but that it is within our power to decide and train ourselves on how we choose to relate to those normal aspects of life.
It really struck a chord with me because I see this same thing every day with clients and in my own life as well.
You can’t remove challenges from life. You can’t remove every bit of stress from your life. You can’t go through life without meeting obstacles standing in the way of your goals.
This is just as true when you are trying to get fit and healthy. Many times I see people start a program only to quit when they meet their first challenge or things don’t go according to plan.
I’ve seen people with so much to gain from adding some basic healthy habits into their lifestyle completely throw in the towel because they missed 1 gym session due to bad traffic.
I’ve seen people on the verge of making massive improvements in their quality of life quit because they had to stay on at work a bit later than usual and it threw them completely off track and broke their planned routine.
People who go on a 4 day binge because they had a stressful day and end up thinking “Whats the point in going to the gym anymore after that disaster”
How they choose to relate to normal every day challenges, obstacles and ‘life events’ play a massive role in deciding their quality of life.
Healthy, fit people on the other hand who face the exact same challenges yet succeed in consistently exercising, eating nutritious foods, etc. have developed a different relationship to these normal aspects of life.
They accept them, deal with them and move on.
- I missed my planned gym session today so I’ll go tomorrow instead
- I’m feeling stressed due to work so I’ll book a massage
- That was fairly crappy, unplanned food choice but I enjoyed it and it’s not that big a deal really
- I fell over the cat and my old injury has flared up- no doubt my coach can advise me on this in tomorrows session (True story!!)
Take home point is that you are always going to have challenges when it comes to getting fit and healthy- you can’t escape that reality so you need to accept it if you want to change your current circumstances and achieve your chosen goals.
The determining factor in whether or not you overcome these obstacles so you keep moving forward towards a more rewarding quality of life is how you choose to relate to them.
This skill, like all others, takes time to develop so don’t expect it to just happen overnight. Give yourself time to work on it and when you come through enough challenges you’ll realise how insignificant they really were in the grand scheme go things.
You’ll also understand how beneficial it was for you to experience them in the first place.
Have a great day.
Steve McGrath
Leave a Reply