Self-Care: All or Nothing?

Drop that thinking.

One of the biggest obstacles to self-care isn’t time, energy, or motivation—it’s all-or-nothing thinking.

All-or-nothing thinking traps us in extremes:
🔹 If I can’t work out for an hour, why bother at all?
🔹 If I don’t stick to my diet perfectly, I might as well quit.
🔹 If I don’t have 30 minutes to meditate, it’s not worth it.

This mindset keeps us stuck. It convinces us that if we can’t do everything, we might as well do nothing.

But what if we did something—no matter how small?

Take Sara. She planned to work out for an hour, but had to stay late at work. Instead of squeezing in a shorter workout, she skipped the gym entirely. That one missed session threw off her momentum, and she didn’t go back for over a week.

Or Kevin, who believes meditation only counts if he does it for 30 minutes. So when he only has 10 minutes, he skips it altogether. Days go by without practicing at all.

Or Charlie, who is either 100% on her diet or completely off. After eating two unexpected cookies, she tells herself she’s failed—so she ditches her plan for two weeks.

These patterns don’t get us closer to our goals. They hold us back.

What if we dropped the all-or-nothing thinking?

What if Sara saw that a 20-minute workout was still valuable?
What if Kevin realized 10 minutes of meditation is better than none?
What if Charlie reminded herself, “Two cookies don’t erase all my progress”?

The truth is, progress isn’t about perfection—it’s about consistency.

Showing up for yourself—even for 5 minutes—matters.
✅ 10 pushups and 10 squats, twice a day.
✅ A 5-minute walk in the morning and another in the evening.
✅ 5 minutes on the bike in the morning and 5 minutes of stretching at night.

It may not seem like much at first, but these small moments build trust in yourself. They build momentum. And before you know it, you might feel inspired to find more time—because you’re already in motion.

And if one day, all you have is 2 minutes? Do something. Keep showing up.

Let’s stop making self-care an all-or-nothing game. Let’s make it realistic, sustainable, and part of our lives exactly as they are right now.

Your Turn:

  • Where in your life might you be engaging in all-or-nothing thinking?
  • Do your self-care goals fit your real schedule and energy levels?
  • How can you adjust your approach so you actually follow through?

💡 Dig Deeper: What changes might you need to make in your life to better support your self-care practices? (Hint: making those changes IS self-care.)

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Work with me: Want to see how self-care is transformative and can help you create the results you want in your life? I can show you how. I offer first-time seekers a complimentary 45-minute exploratory session. Sign up here.

What’s on your mind? It can be powerful to learn from each other and our common struggles when it comes to our practice of self-care–or just being a human being. If you have something you’re struggling with and would like some perspective, share it here. Your issue may be chosen and addressed in the next post–it’ll be totally anonymous.

“Decide to” in 2025

Don’t just “want to.”

As we move into 2025, many of us are likely thinking about changes we want to make in our lives. Sometimes we have a long list of things we want to do or change. Sometimes we have just one, two, or three big things. 

No matter what you have in mind, ask yourself this: Am I wanting to make these changes or am I deciding to make these changes?

Wanting to make changes is more like being interested in making the changes. When we want something, we have a desire or wish for something. It seems like a good idea. It doesn’t require any action to want something or be interested in something. 

When we decide to do something, it requires us to follow through on a course of action. Deciding is saying, “OK, I’m going to do X” and that’s a pretty firm commitment. Commitment requires action.  

How do you know if you just “want to” vs. “deciding to”? If you have some ideas of changes you’d like to make, think about each thing and see how it lines up with the “want to” or the “decide to” thoughts below.  

“Want to” thoughts (you allow things to get in the way of your goal):

  • My boss gave me a tight deadline, so I can’t go to the gym today (goal is to exercise every day)
  • I’m too tired to meditate this morning (goal is to meditate every morning)
  • It’s too cold to go for a run today (goal is to run 4x a week)
  • I deserve to have this treat because my day was so stressful (goal is to eat less sugar)
  • I just finished a big project so I’m treating myself to a purchase (goal is to spend less)
  • I don’t feel like it today
  • This is too hard

“Decide to” thoughts (your goal is your priority):

  • I’m going to do this today no matter what
  • This is worth it even if it’s hard sometimes
  • I can do hard things
  • I’m choosing to make this a priority for me today
  • Even though it’s cold out, I’m still going to do it today
  • This is important to me so I’m going to stick with my plan

Your turn: What do you want to do or be better at in 2025? What new results do you want to create for yourself? Are you ready to decide what you’ll do to make changes in your life? What would happen if you don’t make the change(s) you say you want to make? What would happen and who would you become if you did make the changes you decide to make?

Best wishes to you for 2025!

Subscribe if you want to receive this content directly in your inbox.

Work with me: Want to see how self-care is transformative and can help you create the results you want in your life? I can show you how. I offer first-time seekers a complimentary 45-minute exploratory session. Sign up here.

What’s on your mind? It can be powerful to learn from each other and our common struggles when it comes to our practice of self-care–or just being a human being. If you have something you’re struggling with and would like some perspective, share it here. Your issue may be chosen and addressed in the next post–it’ll be totally anonymous.

Your boundaries with YOU

Build trust.

We’ve been talking about boundaries with other people for the past few weeks. Let’s talk about boundaries with ourselves today.

What this looks like is keeping commitments to ourselves or keeping our word to ourselves.

If we are the keepers of our own boundaries with others and we take the actions to maintain those boundaries, we can do the same with ourselves.

We may want to set a boundary for ourselves around the following:

  • Boundary between work and home (for those who work from home)
  • Boundary for when we look at or check our phones
  • Boundary for how much time we spend on social media
  • Boundary around time spent watching streaming shows
  • Boundary around how much sugar we eat
  • Boundary around how much caffeine or alcohol we drink
  • Boundary around how much active time we have 
  • Boundary for when we choose to go to sleep every night

We can make plans for all these boundaries. What creates boundary violations with ourselves is when we don’t stick to the plan. 

  • We worked two more hours than we planned to. 
  • We have one more drink than we planned to. 
  • We scrolled on social media for 45 minutes longer than we planned to.
  • We ate two cookies instead of one. 
  • We went to bed at midnight instead of 10:30pm. 
  • We didn’t exercise like we planned to. 

Many of us are very good at keeping commitments to others, especially if we don’t want to disappoint them or let them down. What happens when we don’t keep our commitments to others? They may feel let down and disappointed. We may feel guilty or disappointed in ourselves. 

What happens when we don’t keep our commitments to ourselves? We are the ones who feel BOTH things–let down by ourselves AND guilty or disappointed in ourselves. We get a double whammy. 

When we don’t follow through with our commitments to ourselves, we erode our trust with ourselves. This makes us less likely to even make plans for ourselves to commit to because we might think, “What’s the point? I probably won’t do it anyway.” 

To build trust with ourselves, we can practice keeping commitments to ourselves with compassion. We make the plan (the boundary) and we take the actions to maintain the plan (keeping the boundary). If we miss the mark once, we don’t just give up. We give ourselves grace and practice taking action again. 

It feels good to keep a commitment. The more we do it, the more trust we build with ourselves. And that can have positive effects on everything we do. 

Your turn: What plans (boundaries) do you want to put into place for yourself? Are you willing to be committed to being the keeper of your plans (boundaries)? How would your life be different if you kept your commitment to maintaining your boundaries with yourself?

Subscribe if you want to receive this content directly in your inbox.

Work with me: Want to see how self-care is transformative and can help you create the results you want in your life? I can show you how. I offer first-time seekers a complimentary 45-minute exploratory session. Sign up here.

What’s on your mind? It can be powerful to learn from each other and our common struggles when it comes to our practice of self-care–or just being a human being. If you have something you’re struggling with and would like some perspective, share it here. Your issue may be chosen and addressed in the next post–it’ll be totally anonymous.

Wisdom from your Future Self

Receive it.

Many of us are used to looking to our past to determine what our future could be. 

We may think, “Well, I’ve only made $75,000 a year before, so I’m not sure if I’ll be able to make more than that” or “I’ve never lost 30 pounds before, so I don’t know if I can do it” or just “I haven’t done that before, so I probably can’t do it.”

When we really look at those thoughts, it’s almost silly that we’d think them. Just because we haven’t done something before doesn’t mean that we won’t be able to do it. That’s just an easy excuse, a way to shut out possibility. 

If we’re basing what’s possible on our past, then yes, we will only be able to see what’s possible based on what we’ve already done. 

But if we want to go beyond what we’ve done before, we need to look to our future and keep our focus there. 

But what gets in the way now of achieving seemingly impossible goals? 

We may be able to make a list of “things” that get in the way, but really, it’s mostly just our thoughts. Which create feelings. Like fear, doubt, defeat. Ahead of time.

Remember, thoughts create our feelings, feelings drive our actions, and our actions (or inactions) produce the results we get. 

So let’s think thoughts that create the feelings: determined, focused, excited, committed.

Our Future Self believes in what’s possible. 

Our Future Self knows that they can do it. 

Our Future Self is living the dream – has made the money, lost the weight, stopped drinking, has the partner, feels good. 

So instead of thinking thoughts that create obstacles towards our goals and the feeling of “defeated” ahead of time, we can choose thoughts that create momentum and the feeling of “determined.” 

What does our Future Self who’s already achieved the goal think and feel? Let’s start thinking some of those thoughts. Let’s start feeling some of those feelings.

When we choose intentional thoughts on purpose about what’s possible for us, we get to feel the intentional feelings created by those thoughts. Then we get to be intentional with our actions and inactions. And ultimately, we can create the results we want.

Your turn: What do you want to create in your life and why? What would you get to believe and think about yourself when you achieve that goal? What would you get to feel when you achieve that goal? What if those thoughts and feelings are all available for you to believe and feel about yourself right now? Guess what? They are.

I talk more about this topic in today’s episode of Get Out of Your Own Way, Ep. 11: “What Your Future Self Knows.” Check it out here: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube.

Subscribe if you want to receive this content directly in your inbox.

Work with me: Want to see how self-care is transformative and can help you create the results you want in your life? I can show you how. I offer first-time seekers a complimentary 45-minute exploratory session. Sign up here.

What’s on your mind? It can be powerful to learn from each other and our common struggles when it comes to our practice of self-care–or just being a human being. If you have something you’re struggling with and would like some perspective, share it here. Your issue may be chosen and addressed in the next post–it’ll be totally anonymous.

All-or-nothing thinking

Drop it.

One of the things that can get in the way of our self-care practices is all-or-nothing thinking. 

All-or-nothing thinking is an unhelpful thinking pattern that we may be engaging in. We can recognize when we’re doing this when we’re thinking in extremes: we’re either a success or a failure. Our performance was perfect or terrible. If we’re not one hundred percent, then we’re a zero. If we can’t exercise for an hour, then we won’t do it at all.

That last example creates a majority of the reasons why most people don’t engage in self-care practices. Some people might have an unrealistic idea – an ideal – of what self-care looks like for them.

And when they can’t meet that ideal, they don’t do ANYTHING.

For example, because Sara thinks she has to exercise for an hour 4 times a week, when she has to stay 20 minutes later at work than expected one afternoon, she decides that she can’t exercise for a full hour before going home to make dinner, so she doesn’t go to the gym at all that day. And because she didn’t go to the gym that day, her gym momentum takes a hit and she doesn’t go again for a week and a half. 

If Sara dropped her all-or-nothing thinking, she could’ve gone to the gym and exercised for 30 minutes – even 20 minutes would have been beneficial.

Or because Kevin thinks he has to meditate for 30 minutes every time he sits down to practice, when he finds himself with only 10 minutes one day, he skips his practice entirely. And his meditation practice momentum takes a hit and he finds himself skipping practice for several days because he “doesn’t have time.” 

If Kevin dropped his all-or-nothing thinking, he’d recognize that meditating for 10 minutes can still be beneficial.

Or because Charlie thinks she has to stick to her diet 100% or it won’t work, when she finds herself eating two more cookies than she planned on Tuesday, she quits her whole diet for the next two weeks. Quitting won’t get us to our goal faster. 

If Charlie dropped her all-or-nothing thinking, she could instead think, “OK, I ate two extra cookies today, but I can still stick with my plan for dinner. And tomorrow, I can stick with my meal plan too. I don’t have to give up just because I went off part of my plan today.”

It’s great to set ambitious goals for ourselves. But not at the expense of us meeting those goals. It’s about having realistic plans for the time we DO have, with the decisions we CAN make, and with the CAPACITY we have.

With any practice, consistency and commitment are important. Showing up is key. Even for 5 minutes.

So when we want to have a movement goal of exercising every day and we only have 5 minutes in the morning and 5 minutes in the evening to do something, we DO something during those 5 minutes. 

It could be 10 pushups and 10 squats, twice a day. 

It could be a 5 minute walk twice a day. 

It could be 5 minutes on a bike/treadmill in the morning and 5 minutes stretching at night. 

But we DO it when the time comes. We show up for ourselves when the time comes. 

Showing up for ourselves consistently builds trust in ourselves to do what we say we’ll do. Even if it’s only for 5 minutes at a time. 

And what we may find is that those 5 minutes build strength, energy, and motivation to extend our movement time. We might find ourselves wanting to make more time to build on what we started and do 10 minutes at a time. Or find a 30-minute time chunk each day. We won’t know what’s possible for us until we try. 

And still, maybe it happens that one day, we don’t even have 5 minutes and we only have 2 minutes. We can still do SOMEthing during those 2 minutes to move our body around intentionally.

So we can drop the all-or-nothing thinking. We can start having more realistic ideas of what our self-care plan looks like. And then we show up for those plans. We show up for ourselves.

Your turn: Where in your life might you be engaging in all-or-nothing thinking? Do you find yourself wondering why you’re not engaging in the self-care practices you KNOW you can do? Are your self-care plans realistic or unrealistic to fit into your life right now? How can you create self-care practices that FIT into your life exactly the way it is right now? 

Dig Deeper: In what ways might you need to make changes in your life to help support your self-care practices? (Hint: making those changes IS part of self-care.)

Subscribe if you want to receive this content directly in your inbox.

Work with me: Want to see how self-care is transformative and can help you create the results you want in your life? I can show you how. I offer first-time seekers a complimentary 60-minute exploratory session. Sign up here.

What’s on your mind? It can be powerful to learn from each other and our common struggles when it comes to our practice of self-care–or just being a human being. If you have something you’re struggling with and would like some perspective, share it here. Your issue may be chosen and addressed in the next post–it’ll be totally anonymous.

Take massive action in 2024

Create vs. Consume

Last week we talked about “deciding to” vs. “wanting to.” This week we’ll talk a little more about what we can DO when we decide to make changes in our lives.

We take two types of actions when it comes to our goals: passive action and massive action. 

Passive action is when we’re learning, gaining, and organizing knowledge about our goal. We’re consuming information about it. 

Massive action is when we actually DO something with what we’ve learned. We apply it in our lives in an active, creative way that moves us towards our goal.

Here are some examples:

Goal: Exercise 4 days/week

Passive action = Research gyms to join, learn about what exercises to do, make a plan for exercising by working different muscle groups each day, buy new workout clothes, watch social media videos of people showing you their workouts

Massive action = wake up an hour earlier 4 days a week, put on the workout clothes, drive to the gym, DO the exercises each of the 4 days as planned even when you think it’s too hard

Goal: Eat less sugar

Passive action = research low-sugar items, learn about how sugar affects your body, make a plan for how much sugar you want to eat each day, make a list of things that are OK for you to eat, watch social media videos about how to eat less sugar 

Massive action = remove extraneous sugary items from your home/office, stick to the plan that you made, decrease your desire for sugar, eat only the items on your OK list, eat only the amount of sugar on your plan, allow the urge to eat more sugar and don’t react to the urge (don’t eat more sugar) even when you think it’s too hard

Goal: Save more money

Passive action = decide how much to save every month, review your expenses and see where you can decrease spending, read a book about budgeting and reducing expenses, participate in a workshop about debt, make a plan for saving and decreasing expenses, watch social media videos about saving money

Massive action = set up automatic savings every month, allow the urge to spend money when you see something you “want” but don’t necessarily “need,” stick to your savings plan even when you think it’s too hard

Goal: Meditate 3 days/week for 20 minutes

Passive action = read about meditation methods, listen to talks by meditation teachers, choose a practice you want to explore, find a meditation group/class, purchase a meditation app/program, watch social media videos about people talking about meditation

Massive action = make a space in your home for meditation, show up to the group/class, sit and practice for 20 minutes even when your mind wanders and you think it’s too hard

Goal: Be kinder to yourself

Passive action = read books about self-love and self-compassion, make a list of ways to be kinder to yourself, heart and save social media posts about self-love and self-compassion, watch social media videos showing people talking about self-love

Massive action = look in the mirror and tell yourself “thank you” every morning for a month; when that feels comfortable, look in the mirror and tell yourself “I love you” every morning; when you feel overwhelmed, ask yourself, “What is the kindest thing I can do for myself right now?” and honor the answer; do some of those things on the list you made every week or every month

The point is to DO the actions that are part of our goal. While we do need to do some amount of passive action by consuming information, we can read, watch, and learn about our goal all we want, but if we’re not DOING the actions that will lead towards our goal, we’re just consuming and not creating. We’re staying where we are. Let’s not get stuck.

Even making a plan is passive – it’s not until we carry out the steps on the plan that we’re creating and taking massive action. Let’s create more than we consume. 

This is not to say that we don’t also take care of ourselves while moving towards our goals. A lot of us want to stop when it begins to feel hard because we think it should be easy. Let it be hard. And keep going. We can be kind and take care of ourselves when we need to, but there’s a difference between giving ourselves some grace and self-sabotaging or giving up.

Your turn: Are you able to tell the difference between the passive and massive actions you’ve been taking in your life? How can you become more aware of the amount you’re consuming vs. what you’re creating? What massive action(s) will you decide to commit to?

Subscribe if you want to receive this content directly in your inbox.

Work with me: Want to see how self-care is transformative and can help you create the results you want in your life? I can show you how. I offer first-time seekers a complimentary 60-minute exploratory session. Sign up here.

What’s on your mind? It can be powerful to learn from each other and our common struggles when it comes to our practice of self-care–or just being a human being. If you have something you’re struggling with and would like some perspective, share it here. Your issue may be chosen and addressed in the next post–it’ll be totally anonymous.

“Decide to” in 2024

Don’t just “want to.”

As we move into 2024, many of us are likely thinking about changes we want to make in our lives. Sometimes we have a long list of things we want to do or change. Sometimes we have just one, two, or three big things. 

No matter what you have in mind, ask yourself this: Am I wanting to make these changes or am I deciding to make these changes?

Wanting to make changes is more like being interested in making the changes. When we want something, we have a desire or wish for something. It seems like a good idea. It doesn’t require any action to want something or be interested in something. 

When we decide to do something, it requires us to follow through on a course of action. Deciding is saying, “OK, I’m going to do X” and that’s a pretty firm commitment. Commitment requires action.  

How do you know if you just “want to” vs. “deciding to”? If you have some ideas of changes you’d like to make, think about each thing and see how it lines up with the “want to” or the “decide to” thoughts below.  

“Want to” thoughts (you allow things to get in the way of your goal):

  • My boss gave me a tight deadline, so I can’t go to the gym today (goal is to exercise every day)
  • I’m too tired to meditate this morning (goal is to meditate every morning)
  • It’s too cold to go for a run today (goal is to run 4x a week)
  • I deserve to have this treat because my day was so stressful (goal is to eat less sugar)
  • I just finished a big project so I’m treating myself to a purchase (goal is to spend less)
  • I don’t feel like it today
  • This is too hard

“Decide to” thoughts (your goal is your priority):

  • I’m going to do this today no matter what
  • This is worth it even if it’s hard sometimes
  • I can do hard things
  • I’m choosing to make this a priority for me today
  • Even though it’s cold out, I’m still going to do it today
  • This is important to me so I’m going to stick with my plan

Your turn: What do you want to do or be better at in 2024? What new results do you want to create for yourself? Are you ready to decide what you’ll do to make changes in your life? What would happen if you don’t make the change(s) you say you want to make? What would happen and who would you become if you did make the changes you decide to make?

Best wishes to you for 2024!

Subscribe if you want to receive this content directly in your inbox.

Work with me: Want to see how self-care is transformative and can help you create the results you want in your life? I can show you how. I offer first-time seekers a complimentary 60-minute exploratory session. Sign up here.

What’s on your mind? It can be powerful to learn from each other and our common struggles when it comes to our practice of self-care–or just being a human being. If you have something you’re struggling with and would like some perspective, share it here. Your issue may be chosen and addressed in the next post–it’ll be totally anonymous.

When you flake on yourself

You deserve better.

Last week I shared about the second pillar of the 3 pillars of transformative self-care – how we speak about and to ourselves. Let’s talk about the third pillar today: how we treat ourselves.

We might think we treat ourselves pretty well. We practice good dental hygiene, we get a massage every once in a while, we take vitamins, we sleep for several hours most nights, we put food into our bodies regularly, we use the stairs sometimes or park farther away from our destination to get in some extra steps. 

These are all beneficial things to do for ourselves. And what else can we do for ourselves to show that we care? 

One of the strongest ways we can show ourselves that we care is by doing what we say we’ll do – when it comes to ourselves. 

How would we feel about a friend or someone close to us who tells us they’re going to do this or that with us or for us, and then when the day comes to do it, they either call/text to say they can’t make it, or they don’t show up at all? 

  • – After the first time, we’ll likely give them some grace but feel disappointed by the outcome. 
  • – The second time they do it, we might start to question the validity of their words. 
  • – If they do it a third time, we’ll see a definite pattern here and probably feel frustrated and give up on believing them. We might even start to think that they don’t really care about or respect us. 

This would be a normal reaction to someone who seems to be unable to follow through on what they say to us – someone who flakes on us.

And yet, how often have we flaked on ourselves? Flaking on ourselves means saying we’ll do something for ourselves, but at the last minute, we change our mind and don’t show up for what we said we’d do. 

When we do this, we show ourselves that we don’t take our goals and desires seriously. We’re not caring for ourselves, and sometimes, we’re not respecting ourselves. Is that how we want to treat ourselves? 

If we want to start treating ourselves better by keeping our promises and commitments to ourselves, we can start to build trust with ourselves by taking small actions. “Today I’m going to walk around the block at 3pm.” 

And then at 3pm, we do what we say. We get up and walk around the block. 

When we do this, there’s a sense of empowerment, a feeling of accomplishing something and fulfilling a promise to ourselves – no matter how small. “It feels good to do what I said I would!” Celebrate that and remember the feeling. It will help reinforce following through with future plans.

This is how we start to strengthen the muscle of trusting ourselves more, knowing that we can have our own back. We can continue to make another small commitment to keep each day – it could be the same one! – until it’s just automatic for us to keep our word to ourselves. Until it feels uncomfortable when we don’t keep our word to ourselves. 

It might not happen overnight, but it’s worth it to keep practicing. WE are worth it. If we haven’t been in the practice of keeping our commitments to ourselves, it can take time to build that up. Take that time.

When we get even better at keeping commitments to ourselves, we learn to treat ourselves better in multiple aspects of our lives. We start to know what it truly feels like to take care of ourselves and treat ourselves in the way we want and deserve to be treated. We learn how to have our own back, no matter what. 

Your turn: In what ways do you want to treat yourself better? What commitments do you want to keep with yourself? What is one small commitment you want to make to yourself today that you’ll do tomorrow? When tomorrow comes, are you willing to build trust with yourself and do the thing? 

Dive Deeper: If you still find yourself not doing the thing, are you open to asking yourself if this is something you truly want to do for yourself or is something/someone else telling you “you should” do it?

Subscribe if you want to receive this content directly in your inbox.

Work with me: Want to see how self-care is transformative and can help you create the results you want in your life? I can show you how. I offer first-time seekers a complimentary 60-minute exploratory session. Sign up here.

What’s on your mind? It can be powerful to learn from each other and our common struggles when it comes to our practice of self-care–or just being a human being. If you have something you’re struggling with and would like some perspective, share it here. Your issue may be chosen and addressed in the next post–it’ll be totally anonymous.

The decisions you’re not making

“Want to” vs. “Decide to.”

Happy New Year! Wishing you a wonderful 2023! 

As we move further into 2023, many of us are likely engaging in changes we want in our lives. Sometimes we have a long list of things we want to do or change. Sometimes we have just one, two, or three big things. 

No matter what you have in mind, ask yourself this: “Am I wanting to make these changes or am I deciding to make these changes?”

Wanting to make changes is more like being interested in making the changes. When we want something, we have a desire or wish for something. It seems like a good idea. It doesn’t require any action to want something or be interested in something. 

When we decide to do something, it requires us to follow through on a course of action. Deciding is saying, “OK, I’m going to do X” and that’s a pretty firm commitment. Commitment requires action.  

How do you know if you just “want to” vs. “deciding to”? If you have some ideas of changes you’d like to make, think about each thing and see how it lines up with the “want to” or the “decide to” thoughts below.  

“Want to” thoughts (you allow things to get in the way of your goal):

  • My boss gave me a tight deadline, so I can’t go to the gym today (goal is to exercise every day)
  • I’m too tired to meditate this morning (goal is to meditate every morning)
  • It’s too cold to go for a run today (goal is to run 4x a week)
  • I deserve to have this treat because my day was so stressful (goal is to eat less sugar)
  • I just finished a big project so I’m treating myself to a purchase (goal is to spend less)
  • I don’t feel like it today
  • This is too hard

“Decide to” thoughts (your goal is your priority):

  • I’m going to do this today no matter what
  • This is worth it even if it’s hard sometimes
  • I can do hard things
  • I’m choosing to make this a priority for me today
  • Even though it’s cold out, I’m still going to do it today
  • This is important to me so I’m going to stick with my plan

Your turn: What do you want to do or be better at in 2023? What new results do you want to create for yourself? Are you ready to decide what you’ll do to make changes in your life? What would happen if you don’t make the change(s) you say you want to make? What would happen and who would you become if you did make the changes you want to make?

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Work with me: Want to see how self-care is transformative and can help create a more meaningful life in which you start committing to yourself and show up the way you want? I can show you how. I offer first-time seekers a complimentary 45-minute exploratory session. Sign up here.

What’s on your mind? It can be powerful to learn from each other and our common struggles when it comes to our practice of self-care–or just being a human being. If you have something you’re struggling with and would like some perspective, share it here. Your issue may be chosen and addressed in the next post–it’ll be totally anonymous.

When you make positive changes

Let it be hard.

When we want to make positive changes in our lives, it’s usually because we know we can be living in a more aligned way. Aligned to what? 

Aligned to the version of ourselves we are becoming. Aligned to who we want to be. Aligned to the best version of ourselves. And it takes time, trial and error, and energy to know the direction we want to move towards. 

When we make decisions to change, we recognize that our lives might feel out of alignment with who we know we can be. That doesn’t mean who we are right now is “wrong” or “bad” or “not good enough”–it just means we know we can grow even more than where we are right now. 

I want to offer that this is part of showing care and love for ourselves, by wanting a healthier body, better relationships, finding our purpose, a job that will challenge us, being more present in our lives. 

So we decide to make the changes we think will move us towards those goals.

We might feel motivated and inspired at first, when our thoughts about what we’re doing make it easy to start out. Thoughts like, “I can do this. This is easy. This feels good. I’m doing something right for myself.”

But then it starts getting hard. Most of the time, people don’t stick to what they say they want because it starts to get hard

When it starts to get hard, we feel uncomfortable. Our brains want to go back to what was easy, comfortable, and familiar. 

Even if that ease, comfort, and familiarity wasn’t in our best interests and is why we made the decision to create changes in our life in the first place.

When it gets hard, we may think: 

“I don’t feel like it today.” 

“I can keep scrolling for another 20 minutes.” (which turns into 60 minutes!)

“I miss him so much, I’ll just text him to see how he’s doing.” 

These urges come up because we want to go back to what is easy, comfortable, and familiar. If we keep answering these urges by returning to what’s easy, comfortable, and familiar, we won’t get to the place where we pass through the “hard” part.

Instead, we can allow the urges–and any other feelings that come up–to be there without resisting or reacting to them. We can process them through instead. 

So let it be hard. And keep doing it anyway.

Keep sticking to the plan. Keep remembering why this is important. It was a decision to want more for ourselves because we care about ourselves. To align with who we want to be and are becoming.

When we can let it be hard, we will pass through to the other side of it. Then it will just become a regular part of what we do in our lives, a part of who we are. 

Your turn: Are you ready to stop quitting on yourself? Are you willing to let it be hard? What would happen if you let it be hard and got to the place where it’s just part of what you do and who you are? How would your life be better or different then?

Subscribe if you want to receive this content directly in your inbox.

Work with me: Want to see how self-care is transformative and can help create a more meaningful life in which you start committing to yourself and show up the way you want? I can show you how. I offer first-time seekers a complimentary 45-minute exploratory session. Sign up here.

What’s on your mind? It can be powerful to learn from each other and our common struggles when it comes to our practice of self-care–or just being a human being. If you have something you’re struggling with and would like some perspective, share it here. Your issue may be chosen and addressed in the next post–it’ll be totally anonymous.