MANAGING EXPECTATIONS

When you have health and wellness goals, your expectations can determine whether you reach those goals or not.

Everyone wants wow-worthy results, be it weight loss, body re-composition (toning and tightening), better sleep, or managing your stress, but having unrealistic expectations can lead to giving up entirely.

Meeting your health, nutrition and wellness goals comes with trade-offs. That’s simply the reality of changing your behaviors and habits. And unless you are able to understand the trade-offs and set your expectations accordingly, you are setting yourself up to be disappointed.

Let’s use stress management and yoga as an example.

It’s been proven that a regular yoga practice helps reduce stress, reduces anxiety, improves mental health, and can improve your quality of life – along with numerous physical benefits like increased flexibility, strength, balance, boosted immunity, and better sleep.

But what does it take to achieve the FULL benefits of doing yoga?

Five minutes a day?

Twenty?

An hour?

Are you focusing on breath work or meditation techniques? Because while focusing on these two areas can have a significant impact on stress reduction, anxiety, and improved mental health, they are not going to have much of an impact on your flexibility or strength.

Are you devoting the time, energy and resources to immersing yourself into a yoga practice; or are you doing a couple of poses to stretch and relax before you crawl into bed at night?

Neither of these 2 scenarios is “wrong”. But if you’re expecting to do complicated poses and twist yourself into a pretzel after a couple of weeks of stretching before bedtime, that is an unrealistic expectation.

Or if you’re focusing on the physical benefits of yoga (twisting like a pretzel), you’re not as likely to achieve the same stress relief as practiced breath work and meditation can provide.

There’s no right or wrong reason to start doing yoga (or trying to lose weight, gain muscle, better sleep, whatever your goal is), but you are going to have much greater success if you go into the health change you’re trying to accomplish with realistic expectations.

Comments

THIS Is The Blog Post That’s Going to Offend You….So Y’all Buckle Up

At what juncture did we, as a society, hit the point where eating whole, minimally-processed, nutritious food became “diet” food….and ultra-processed, sugary, salty, extra-fatty foods became “normal”? I like pizza. I like fries. I like chocolate cake. But I find it frustrating when I’m looking for healthy options on a menu or when we’re attending a game or tournament for Mini-Me, and I get asked, “Are you on a diet or something?” when I eventually settle for a grilled-chicken sandwich at a restaurant, or popcorn at the game because there are no other options. I know this is also an incredibly frustrating situation for Hubs as well. He is actively working on his health and wellness. He’s lost 40 pounds (YAY Hubs!), and is working on more. He has to limit sugar, white flour, and processed foods. That makes most foods at a concession stand null and void. It makes most fast-food places difficult to navigate. Sit-down restaurants are a little better, but still have very limited optio...

WHY IS YOUR BRAIN TRYING TO SABOTAGE YOUR HEALTH GOALS?! And How Do You STOP It?

Have you ever found yourself thinking, “I should really go take a walk”, and instead you scrolled on social media for an hour? Or told yourself, “I’m going to prep a salad for lunch tomorrow with grilled chicken and a homemade vinegarette”, but then you convinced yourself you didn’t have time because there was laundry to finish, the dog needed to be fed, and it was almost time to start the kids’ bedtime routine? We don’t like to make changes. As humans, our brains are hard-wired to keep us safe. And part of that process includes being averse or resistant to changes. If what we’re doing has been keeping us safe and maintaining the status quo, our brain will play all the tricks it can to stop us from disrupting our peaceful existence. Even at the expense of our own health. So while you may want and need to take that walk or prep that salad, your brain is going to view it differently. If this is not part of your normal routine, the brain automatically reverts to, “What change is this?...

ARE YOU TRYING TO GET MORE PHYSICAL ACTIVITY INTO YOUR DAY? Here Are a Few Hints....

I am SOOOO guilty when it comes to sitting my butt on the couch (or in my chair) after a long day. Whether your job is more mental, physical, in an office, work from home, SAHM, on your feet all day, or whatever, after a long day doing ANYTHING , it’s difficult to find the willpower or motivation to get yourself up and moving again. To help make sure you’re getting the movement you need throughout the day, I have 3 key recommendations. 1. Schedule time into your calendar and guard that time like it is a sacred ritual. Now, does this sound dramatic? Yeah, a bit. But for some people, this is what needs to be done in order to make it work. I have clients who treat their exercise time as a non-negotiable part of their day, and someone better be bleeding or missing a digit to disturb that time. If this fits your personality type, or if you’re the kind of busy mom who deeply needs to schedule each part of your day to make sure you’re getting...

Denice Murray Health Coaching

Search This Blog