Preparation is easier than being unprepared

As a Health Coach, I hear a lot about what makes it difficult to reach goals. I work with my clients to overcome these difficulties, but they always seem to come up. If there is a challenge, I’ve likely heard about it.

Sometimes there are challenges that are more challenging…for me to hear. One of the most challenging things for me to hear about is how difficult it is to prepare for things. I obviously hear it with health goals, but it has been something that we’ve all dealt with.

Preparation is important in many areas. You need to be ready for school, work, family events and even social gatherings. Clearly, the more serious the occasion the more preparation is required. Also the more responsibility you have for the occasion, the more preparation is required.

If responsibility and preparation are directly related, than preparation should be easy. Why should it be easy to prepare? It should be easy because the success of whatever you are doing depends on it. When you look at your list of priorities, what puts things at the top? Is it things that are easy? Do we place things that are simple and have no meaning at the top of your priorities list? No, we don’t.

Our priorities are decided by importance and impact on our lives. You get up and go to work every morning, not because it’s fun. Even if you have a great career or run your own business, you take care of the important details because it is making a difference in the lives of your clients, yourself and your family. Whether you took the job or started the business, your company depends on you to make an impact. Now your preparation and action plan make that impact.

The greater the impact, the greater the importance of preparation becomes. It doesn’t take much preparation to watch television. It doesn’t take much preparation to hit the drive thru.

This is where the concept of preparation meets health. I hear how difficult it is to prepare. I hear how much easier it is to watch television or go to the drive thru. The reason I don’t understand the difficulty is the amount of impact these areas have on our lives.

What we eat and how much activity we get has a very significant impact on our lives. The impact can be seen in many areas including the very basic area of how we feel. The better we eat and the more we move, the better we feel. I ask everyone what they want from a coaching perspective. The answer that I hear the most is: “I want to feel good.”

We all want to feel good. But by not preparing in the area of health, we are not acting as if we want to feel good. We know what we need to do in order to feel good and yet, we are not doing it.

In fact, by not preparing, we are actually making things more difficult. When we enter a meeting unprepared, is a nerve-racking experience. When we throw a party without preparing for it, it is a frustrating experience. Showing up for a test in school without preparing is nothing short of a nightmare that many of us have had. When we suffer the consequences of not preparing with our health it is much more serious.

Our health is our life. We’ve talked about it over and over and I will continue to stress how important health really is. I don’t understand the idea of looking at something that is as terrible as having heart issues, gaining weight, feeling tired all day (the list goes on) and deciding that those are all easier than setting a few goals.

Even if your only goal is to feel good, you can make it easier than all the health issues you face by letting your health go. Feeling good may be the most commonly desired result, but it’s not the only one. There are countless benefits to living healthy. Avoiding many problems is one of them.

Just as the meeting or party or test is more difficult without preparation, health is too. I have seen over and over again that without preparing we simply cannot live the lives we want to live. The key is to realize that while it may be easier to put it off, it is not easier to deal with the consequences.

Being unprepared is much more difficult than preparing. Preparation is a habit, so the more you do it the easier it gets. Remember, easy isn’t bad. In fact, that is what preparation does for you in your routine. You get better at it and it becomes automatic. Eventually, preparation is easier than being unprepared.

Holiday Weekend Strategy

1. Start the day off right

Eat a good breakfast in the morning. No matter what time a big meal is, making sure that you start the day off with a solid breakfast will help you stay in control when it is time to eat again.

*If you are eating closer to dinner time, your breakfast and lunch can be great chances to offset the over-the-top tendencies of the events.

2. Keep the exercise going

Your routine has helped you burn extra calories each day. This weekend is just as important and it can help you feel more energized to chat with friends guests and share laughs with family. If you burn more calories, you can feel more confident that what you eat will make a smaller impact on your weight.

*If you are not into the routine that you want, this is a good time to insert a healthy activity into the tradition. Walks or trips to the park with kids or a family game can create great memories!

3. Remember: It’s just one weekend

Just because there is more food than normal available to you over a holiday weekend doesn’t mean that it has to throw the rest of your routine off. There is no need to beat yourself up. By cutting yourself a little slack, you can actually expect to be MORE successful because your goals are realistic for the day.

*After a holiday weekend is a great time to start your new plan (if you haven’t already), since you know that you likely won’t have a bigger challenge than you’ve already encountered.

Is Your Routine Working For You or Against You?

Everyone has a routine. When I’m coaching someone, I often hear, “I don’t really have a routine” or “I haven’t had a routine for a while”. These are common statements from people that have come to the conclusion that because they weren’t doing something often, they were out of the routine of doing it.

They are partially right. They may not be in the routine of doing it often, but they are in a routine. The routine is NOT doing it. The routine is doing other things instead of what they want to be doing. That puts them right in the middle of a routine. It may not be the routine they want, but it is still a routine.

Everyone has a routine. Everyone has habits and a schedule of things that make up a typical day. Control over these things varies and of course, no two people have the same schedule. The routine is there, no matter how much or how little you plan each day.

In the business world, this s is why some people are succeeding and others are failing. In the academic world, this is why some are acing courses and others are flunking out. And with health, It is why some are living a healthy lifestyle while others are not.

Those that are not living healthy can say, “I’m just not in a routine”, but we know that they are simply in a routine that is not working for them. It may be working for someone else, but it is clearly not working for the person. If it was working for them, they would be reaching the goals that they have for themselves.

It sounds harsh, but it is the truth. Your routine is there. The only question to ask your self is:

Is my routine working for me or is it working against me?

If it is working for you, you must have put some time into setting goals, planning
your actions so you could reach those goals. If it is working against you, you have two choices:

Choice 1: keep telling yourself you don’t “have a routine” and pretend that your health will magically improve without you making any changes

Choice 2: take a look at your routine and change it so your actions match your desired result

It doesn’t matter what area of life we talk about. The results that you see are completely dependent on the actions you take. We know that a business gets more customers with advertising and customer services strategies. We know that a student performs better on tests if they study the material beforehand. We also know that you will have a healthier life if you do healthier things.

So, take a quick look at your routine…you have one, you are in one and it is bringing you the results that you are getting right now. In fact, the routine you are in has likely been bringing your results for a long time. If you are in a routine that is working for you, you know the results have been good. If your routine is working against you, well, maybe you should change something if you want your results to change.