The 5 Mindset Shifts You Need To Make To Achieve Your Health Goals

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The 5 Mindset Shifts You Need to Make To Achieve Your Health or Recovery Goals

These tips might be a little dose of harsh reality, but I can guarantee you that they will help you take imperfect action and start moving forward in your health journey instead of feeling stuck and discontent like I was for so long. So, let’s kick off with number one.

1. Your mind and ego will always try to sabotage you

There will always be a part of your brain that pops up with negative thoughts and self-doubts and tell you can’t do something. Don’t let it bully you! Respond with opposite actions. Always be one step ahead of the self-doubt and negativity.

For example, when I had anorexia my ego told me I was NEVER good enough and the only way I’d be accepted and happy as a person was to look a certain way, even though deep down I knew this wasn’t the case. I saw people of all shapes and sizes living their best life, but my mind told me that I could never have that and as a result I got stuck in my eating disorder and couldn’t make that conscious choice to get better because that negative mindset was always one step ahead of me.

So how to you beat this self-sabotage? The harsh reality is you have to fight what’s going on in your head with what’s in your heart, and take opposite actions immediately. You have to choose the behaviour that will get you one step closer to where you want to be every single day. You have to take action before the negative mentality takes hold and overwhelms you, which is something I go through with my 1:1 clients as well.

It’s throwing yourself out of bed in the morning for a walk because your heart knows it’ll make you feel better, even though your head wants to press snooze. It’s prioritising quality meals into your day because your heart knows it’s a sign of self-care, despite your head telling you that you’re too busy or stressed to eat well. It’s meditating despite your BS negative ego telling you it’s pointless, because you know in your heart that it makes such a difference to your mood and outlook that day.

It’s opposite imperfect actions on a daily basis and over time that negative bossy unhelpful ego starts to take a back seat.

2. Let it suck

Everything you ever start will suck at first, let it.

I went back and listened to the first podcast of Holistic Health Radio the other day and I had to laugh, because I had no idea what I was doing, but I kept telling myself done is better than perfect. Nobody ever starts anything and is amazing first go.

I tell my coaching clients the same thing when we start – change is hard and it sometimes feels a bit sucky, before it starts to feel good.

I experienced this first hand when I really committed to eating disorder recovery. I honestly had no idea how hard it would be. I knew I needed to eat more and fight my demons but I never in a million years thought that the eating disorder thoughts would be a million times worse before they got better.

So, the biggest mindset shift I made was to let it suck. You don’t have to pretend that you LOVE every single moment, but you do have to keep going. And I think it’s the same mindset you need when you’re working on a fitness goal, or improving your nutrition, or trying to balance your hormones or starting with intuitive eating.

You won’t see the results instantly and most of the time all this change won’t feel amazing. So how do you get through it and keep going? You need to honour the emotions you feel now, but always keep reminding yourself of the emotions and feelings of whatever your end goal is.

When it feels super shit, you need to go back to your why. This is the starting point for most of my online clients. Why do you want to make this change? What does it mean to you? Write it out. Be specific. And remind yourself of it often.

3. Don’t get distracted or give up.

We live in a world where everyone is looking for a quick fix. But in reality, it doesn’t exist.

Let’s take the process of getting fit for instance. You don’t go to the gym one day and then magically come home super fit. Nope you have to exercise a little bit each day and then over several months (YES MONTHS) you will start to feel stronger or have more endurance when you run, or you have more energy to play with your kids.

The problem is most of us get distracted or give up before this point. We jump from one exercise plan to another, try too many weird things with our nutrition, or give up on recovery because we’re not magically better at the snap of our fingers. Harsh truth here is you need to stay the course. Break down your big goals into daily habits and stick with it. Everything worthwhile takes time.

4. Celebrate the wins and learnings along the way.

Up until now I’ve given you a dose of the harsh reality of what it takes to achieve your health goals, business goals, recovery goals or whatever it is your working on.

Even though change can be hard, there will be SO MANY AMAZING THINGS TO CELEBRATE ALONG THE WAY.

Make sure you take time to stop and reflect at the end of each week. What did you learn? What was a win? Did you overcome a challenge? Hit a new PB? Try a new fear food? Go out when your social anxiety told you that you needed to stay in.

Write that shit down! If you’ve been taking action to better yourself and your life then I invite you to take 5 or 10 minutes and write down all the good shit that’s happened over the last few months or years. All the things that have been wins along the way.

Journaling is by far one of the best ways to look back and reflect on how far you’ve come. What can you do today that you weren’t able to a week ago, a month ago, 3 months ago etc. I guarantee you seeing that progress written down will help you keep going.

5. Don’t go it alone.

This is probably the most important one of all. We think asking for help, getting a coach, a personal trainer or seeing a psychologist makes us weak. But In fact, it’s these people that help us the most and getting us closer to our goals faster.

Pay for a professional to help you!

You’ll not only get accountability, but I guarantee you’ll stick to your goals and daily habits much more effectively. I’ll be the first to put my hand up and say I have a PT to help with my back rehab and it was the best decision I ever made. Even though I have the knowledge myself as an EP, he has gotten me so much further in my strength and function than I could have done myself. He’s also another pillar of support when my pain flares up because a problem shared is a problem halved.

And I see the same with my clients. That weekly check in on their goals holds them accountable and if they don’t hit them, we can problem solve together. Making any changes to your health or working on your recovery takes a lot of energy and can sometimes feel overwhelming but having a team to support you will be the best decision you ever make.