Planting Healthy Seeds in the New Year
Do you treat wellness as a focused, short-term, all-out effort? One you follow with an even longer period of reverting to old habits and behaviors? That doesn’t contribute to your overall health – but you already knew that.
Compare your efforts towards your healthiest self to growing a flower. First, you get the right materials like nutrient rich soil, pots, and a shovel. Then, you plant the seeds. You prepare ideal conditions with enough (but not too much) sunlight and warmth and water it consistently. If you have done the correct preparation and maintain a schedule for feeding your plant, you will eventually end up with deep colored leaves, strong roots, and a beautiful flower. All plants require slightly different nutrients and environments and they can have different rhythms of growth and dormancy.
What happens to your plant if you skip a step or a crucial ingredient? If you water the plant once and never again, or if you flood your plant by over-watering, your plant will fail to thrive.
Consistency and balance are your flower’s only hope for surviving and thriving.
And so it is with us. If we fail to prepare with the right materials needed to be successful, if we are healthy in January and not February through December, or if we overexercise, overhydrate and/or go to extremes with food restriction, we will find ourselves in the same cycles we have grown accustomed to over many years.
If you are exhausted from years of trying to get healthy, trying every different thing, feeling like a yo-yo, and ending back at square one or worse, please consider treating your body like a flower that you’d like to keep around for a long time.
As you build your final, once and for all health plan, consider what you think you would be capable of doing forever. If you start the year with something that you can do for a short time but not forever, decide right now what your transition will look like from restriction to balance. What will balance look like when you get there? How will you settle in to feeling balanced without zooming straight through back into indulgent?
Start the year with a balanced plan, knowing the steps you will consistently take to achieve your health goals. What will be the best schedule in your life for these steps to be completely consistently? Plan ahead for people, places and things that might interfere with your wellness strategy. Know what you will do when these issues arise (because they will!) and plan ahead for how you will get back on track.
A lot of us are refocusing our healthy efforts at this time of year, so use this to build a sustainable approach right from the start. How long can a flower go without water? Try not to stray from your plan for much longer than that.