Use your healthy habits to find fabulosity

I’ve been health coaching a lot of the same clients for going on 15 years now. Naturally, a few of us have gotten pretty friendly. So, I decided to take some of them out for tea and dessert to celebrate the New Year. As their coach I’m aware of their eating habits, and I know that this group likes a good dessert as much as I do.

I thought for a minute the dessert part was a bad idea when a couple of them wouldn’t eat a piece of cake in front of me. But when I dug in myself, moderately of course, the party got started in earnest. I asked them if they wanted to share things that were important in their lives over the past year.

As we went around the circle, they spoke of daughter’s weddings, losing your job, getting pregnant, becoming a gym rat, outliving heart disease, surviving cancer and menopause, the joy of grandchildren, joining a pickleball league, deep sea fishing, golf tournaments and a trip to China.

Maybe because I was their host, the conversation drifted toward how getting fit, eating healthier and reducing their stress had changed their lives.

They shared stories about feeling invisible, putting on belly fat, having no energy and feeling like a lump. One remembered tearing her hair out, saying, "My doctor told me I need to do something, I’ve got serious health issues, but I hate to exercise, I’m stressed all the time and I love sugar. What do I do?"

She said I told her, "We are going to fix this. We’re going to design a program together you can look forward to instead of dread.”

My coaching style is to start people wherever they may be physically and emotionally and get them on their way smoothly and pleasantly, one small goal at a time. If the first experience is pleasant, you’ll want a second and the third and so on. Sustainability is the key to a healthier life. And that’s what happened with these clients.

But something else remarkable happened too.

They said reaching their goals had given them the self-confidence to pursue things they would never have dared to try; that the change in their bodies had kindled a change in the way they saw themselves. 

Instead of feeling invisible, they felt fabulous, and that fabulosity had spilled over into the rest of their lives. 

As much as I would love to take all the credit for this transformation, I checked to see if there’s any science behind this phenomenon, and here's what I found. When you achieve a major life goal, your brain shows you the new neural pathways it has developed through a process called neuroplasticity, a kind of brain rewiring, that allowed you to achieve that goal. 

It triggers a new mindset that sees growth and challenges as opportunities instead of obstacles. You feel like you can go on to the next goal then the next. And you can. It boils down to a healthy body triggers a healthy mind; simple lifestyle changes were the key that unlocked the door to their potential.

Pretty cool huh?