Lifestyle Change Secrets of the Healthy and Fulfilled

I shared some lifestyle change secrets recently with someone who'd realized that they needed to make some lifestyle changes.

  

Their eyes had been opened to several areas where they were not managing well. It was showing up in their health, in their relationships, and in how they felt every week. As I listened to them talk about all the ways they were failing and how they planned on turning it all around, I observed a couple traps that most of us fall into when we try to make long term changes.

It isn't unusual for one realization to turn into a thousand. Shame and condemnation are like ants. If you see one, no doubt hundreds are in the area. This might be why its difficult for us to receive criticism well. The minute we hear one perceived wrong or failing, we can spiral into either a flurry of defense so we won't have to face it or a black hole of insecurity where we are reminded of everything else too.

I stopped this person in our conversation and pointed out that, though it was obvious changes needed to be made, their life wasn't nearly the dumpster fire that they were making it out to be. There were so many things that they were doing right, and some of the things they insisted were the whole problem weren't as big of a problem as they had made them out to be in their head. As we talked through things, I was able to bring compassion and kindness into the equation.

Most of us lack greatly when it comes to compassion and kindness for ourselves. Whether its because we've been taught others are more valuable than we are or we believe that its selfish to treat ourselves like we would treat others or we just think its weak and lazy to give ourselves a break or we've never much been treated with compassion and kindness so the voice in our head is demanding and harsh, we often talk to ourselves like we would never talk to anyone else. This sets the stage for failure in our lives.

Don't get me wrong, we might accomplish some amazing things for a while. We can beat ourselves into submission like a dictator controls a whole nation with a heavy hand, but it's gonna show up somewhere, often in our inability to grow and adapt. It also shows up in the way that we think and talk about others. We may not say out loud what we think about them, but the standard we hold ourselves to is often the standard we expect from everyone else around us.

The first lifestyle change secret is that we have to change the way that we look at and talk to ourselves. This often means facing insecurity, shame, and past wounds from others. It's very easy to type, far harder to do. We have to agree with God about our value and believe that no matter how much we feel needs to be changed, we are loved fully and completely before we even start (Psalm 139:13-16). As a human made in God's image and breathing His breath (Gen 2:7), you are priceless...just as priceless as the human you admire most in this world. God doesn't play favorites (Rom 2:11), and He's not sitting back and waiting for you to fail (Isa 41:13). Anytime He speaks to you, He speaks in love (I Cor 13). We need to internalize that kindness and let it lead us into the growth He wants for us.

When we find kindness for ourselves, it is much easier to sort through the pile of shame and condemnation that the enemy likes to use to keep us from changing. As my conversation, enlightened with compassion, continued with this person who wanted to change, they began to pull some valid failings out the heap. They were failing to get enough sleep, failing to eat nutritious food, failing to exercise, failing to get to certain responsibilities, failing to spend daily time with God...there was a list of changes that were needed. They immediately began detailing out big goals for each one of these areas, and I had to stop them again.

Besides our lack of compassion and kindness for ourselves, I think the other thing that stops us from changing our long-term lifestyle is "biting off more than we can chew". As humans, we have the tendency to want the largest and quickest fixes to the problem. If we can say a prayer that will change everything, lead us in it. If we can take a pill that will make it all go away, give us a prescription. If we can follow an influencer that will teach us everything we need to know, "like/share/follow" I'm in. But I'm going to let you in on a little secret...

Every change worth making starts small and, with consistency, grows slowly.

Changing a lifestyle is like planting a garden. Overnight transformations are usually short lived or come with so many other side effects that it's hard to enjoy the growth. If you want a change to "stick", you've got to start with as small of a piece of it that you can be consistent with and grow from there. Our brain's neural pathways are habitual. To grow a new one, you will need 21-60 days of consistency (Science seems to show that at 21 days neurons have joined into a pathway and around 60 days they have solidified the pathway). The changes that you make need to be able to be maintained or increased over that period of time before they will become a part of your brain's routine.

As we examined this person's responsibilities and schedule, it became clear that all of the changes they wanted to make could not be done at once. It would be a "crash and burn" recipe. So we began to prioritize the things they wanted to tackle first. I only ever recommend that anyone take on 1-3 changes as a time. But even if you are only working on 1-3 habits (building new ones and/or replacing old ones) every 60 days, that's 6-12 changes a year and 30-60 changes every five years. Think of how different your life could look in a few years, just by taking small, consistent steps forward into growth.

This is what I teach people to do in my resourcing course (over on YouTube for a limited time) and in my coaching practice. Sometimes, its difficult to know where to start and how to be consistent. I like to help people do that, encouraging them along the way, and celebrating with them when things start clicking. I truly believe that we all are capable of becoming everything God created us to be, and He's given us the resources to do it. We just have to know how to use them.

When my conversation ended with the person who is now working toward change, I could almost feel the weight that had lifted off of their shoulders. They left our talk with a sense of their value, a handle on their problem, and a semblance of a plan for fixing it. That's the foundation for changing a life.