Читать книгу Mind Body Bowl: Think, move and eat your way to a more balanced life - Annie Clarke - Страница 12

A few last words before we begin

Start from a place of positivity and allow yourself the space to grow and learn without judgement or boundaries. If you wait until you ‘feel like it’ every time you want to make a change, you might stay the same forever. Which is, of course, totally fine if you are happy where you are – but presumably the reason you’ve thought about doing something in the first place is because you feel you have something to gain from making that change.

I can’t tell you the number of times I have sat down and meticulously planned a week so that I can get my work done, see all my clients, get to the gym and do my yoga practice, and been really excited to achieve it. But then it is Monday morning, or Tuesday afternoon, or any time in any day and I just don’t feel like doing whatever is scheduled for that time. I remember that the washing needs doing or that I really must get through my emails, or that I ‘need’ to do absolutely anything else.

Whatever your goal is, you need to understand your motivation in order to be truly committed to achieving it. Rather than think you want to eat more healthily, be stronger, fitter, lose weight, spend more time with friends or whatever else it is that you are striving towards, take a step back and think about what you will gain by achieving it. For example, if you are hoping to lose weight, what will be the impact of that on your life? Perhaps it will improve your confidence or allow you to be more active? What are the results that will make a positive difference to you? Once you start to understand why you want to achieve something, you have a much greater level of motivation to spur you on if it gets tough at any point (and the chances are it will at times).

So often we resolve to make changes because there is something we don’t like in our lives. The trouble is we then tell ourselves that we will be happy once we make this change.

This mindset of changing because we don’t like where we are poses a problem if we don’t see results: it can be pretty frustrating and we bring ourselves down or feel as if we’ve failed if we don’t get exactly where we wanted to be. If you can make a conscious decision to accept yourself first, everything shifts a little. It’s so much more positive to make healthy changes to your lifestyle because you want to care for the amazing body and mind you have and look after them the best you can, than to make changes because you feel negative about yourself. It may be easier said than done, but it makes everything so much more manageable if you can accept yourself for who and where you are right now, before you embark on creating change.

Finally, allow yourself to be a beginner, to make mistakes, to figure out some things quickly and find other things much harder. Don’t expect everything to fall into place straight away; in fact, try not to expect anything at all. This isn’t about miracle cures or overnight success; it’s about taking care of yourself, and learning exactly what you need.