When we take the opportunity to change our lives for the better I like to call this…the shift. Change is inevitable in every moment of every day. We are not the same for more than a moment in time. Our thoughts change, our emotions change, and our physical bodies change. If changes are always happening without any effort, making an actual shift is what happens when we move our lives into a healthy direction. The most important step that we can make when we are ready for a shift is to start with small steps. We must meet ourselves where we are, not where we would like to be. For example, if your diet consists of fatty food that are mostly from a fast food restaurant, you cannot expect that the next day you are going to be satisfied with a bowl of kale! But what you can do is start adding a little green to your diet one day at a time. This process goes for exercise as well. If you have a relatively sedentary life you cannot you cannot expect to wake up one day, strap on your sneakers, and run a marathon. Instead you begin to incorporate walking into your day and build on from there. Sometimes we need to shift our way of thinking or of allowing other people to dictate what our lives should be like. It takes time to learn how to set boundaries and out them into action. The reason that we often do not succeed when we want to make a shift in our lives, comes from being impatient. By the time most of us have decided we are ready to create new ways of living, we have already been living a certain way for a long time. How can we expect to adjust a multiple year habit in only a few short months? We set ourselves up for failure in this respect. I dispense this advice from my own personal journey. Meet yourself where you are and make a plan that sets you up for success. You will have days that you slip and when that happens, you pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and tell yourself “I love you”. Every day you open your eyes is an opportunity to live your best life, so be easy with yourself, and allow the shift to come with patience and love.
Wuf Peace