What Are You Fighting?

When I ask someone about their health, there is a sense from them that I want to hear something positive. This is true to a point. Do I like hearing success stories? Of course I do. I like to hear about people doing things well and making positive changes to their health.

What I don’t like is to hear people tell me what they think I want to hear. There are so many ways to live healthy and so many reasons to do it, that I wonder why we aren’t all doing it. That doesn’t mean that I expect it to be easy. I know that living healthy is a challenge. Actually, it is a series of challenges.

The first challenge seems to be getting over the fight with yourself. When I talk to people about health for the first time, there is often a struggle for them to find a reason that things aren’t as good as they want them to be or as good as they would like to tell me they are. There is a strange need to please that people have causing them to want to give the best reports and share that they are “doing what they are supposed to do”.

Doing what you are supposed to do is challenging. It is hard to do and not many are very good at it. Doing what works for you is easier to do and will always be more fulfilling. The problem is that we have to figure out a few things:

1. What do you want to do?
2. Why do you want to do it?
3. How are you going to do it?
4. What is stopping me from doing it?

When it comes to health, you need to be able to focus. You need to know what you want to do, why you want to do it and how you are going to do it. If you don’t know any or all of these things, you are going to struggle. One of the reasons for people struggling is not being able to identify these options.

That seems to be the biggest reason people are off track. It’s not that they can’t do it. It’s not that they don’t want to do it. It’s more about not taking the time to set up a plan. We could talk about the importance of planning all day. We could talk about it until we knew our plan inside and out, but that wouldn’t help us get started.

What helps us get started? First you have to get over your hang-ups. What are your hang-ups? What are my hang-ups? They are likely different and that is the point. Everyone has their own reasons for not getting started. They want to get going. They know they should get going. They even know why they should get going, but they don’t know how they are going to do it and can’t get past their inner hang-ups that are keeping them from getting started.

Let’s walk through the steps:

1. What do you want to do?

Let’s talk about exercise. When you want to get more active, what do you have to do? You have to get more active. It sounds simple and even too good to be true. Well, it is too good to be true. If it were that easy, everyone would be doing it. You have to start by deciding exactly what you want to do. Do you want to run? Do you want to bike? Do you want to walk or hit the gym? There are countless options, but until you choose one of them, you can’t do any of them.

2. Why do you want to do it?

When it comes to exercise, there are many reasons to get started. There are health benefits, weight loss, looking good and many other reasons to do it. Until you identify those reasons, you can’t motivate yourself to do anything. You have to keep the reasons in mind when you get started so you can keep going when it gets tough.

3. How are you going to do it?

This sounds simple and even sarcastic, but I assure you that you need to mind this step. The way you are going to get active is important. The plan is even more important. For example: If you are going to go to the gym, you need to have a bag and a time set aside to go. If you are going to ride a bike, you need a bike. It doesn’t get any simpler than that, yet many struggle to establish the how before they try to get going.

4. What is stopping you from doing it?

This is where we fail. If you are not doing something, you are being stopped. Something is stopping you from doing it. The people that I talk to with excuses and stories about what has happened or not happened are being stopped. Who or what is stopping them? They are stopping themselves. There is a fight that we all have before starting something new. If have you haven’t gotten started, you are fighting yourself and losing.

Setting up your plan can mean the difference between success and failure. If you don’t do it, failure becomes far more likely. Failure is certain if you are fighting yourself. Health takes support and dedication. When met with a fight, health often loses. We can all put up a good fight and fend off a healthy routine. The world around us makes that easy.

But, what are we fighting? We are fighting a good healthy routine. We are fighting energy. We are fighting better sleep. We are fighting long-term health. We are fighting the look in the mirror that we can be proud of. In other words, we are fighting the things we want.

It doesn’t make sense, does it? Of course it doesn’t make sense. When we are asked, we tell ourselves and others that we want to be healthy. When it comes to the action, we often start that fight. If health brings such good things, why do we fight it?

It doesn’t make sense, but if you follow the steps and ask yourself 4 questions, you can win the fight. Ask yourself what you want to do, why you want to do it, how you are going to do it and you will be able to get started. You may want to ask yourself one more important question before you get too far: What are you fighting?