by Lisa Coleman
These days, it seems like everyone is looking to eat healthier and exercise more. It sounds easy enough, but for those of you who were not raised to eat your vegetables and start every morning with a jog, it can actually be quite challenging. Don’t feel bad if you don’t know where to begin. What matters is that you are interested in improving yourself. As long as you have the drive to get started and are willing to seek out healthy ways to motivate yourself, you will be on your way to discovering a better you in no time.
Decide What You Would Like to Change
Before you can set goals and make real changes in your life, you have to know what end results you actually want. Do you need to eat more vegetables or more fruit? Do you think your body may be missing out on certain vitamins and minerals, and if so, which ones? Are you generally in need of more physical activity in your life, or are you looking to tone and strengthen a particular area of your body? The more you know about what you want to improve, the easier you will be able to set specific goals to help you get there.
Set Two Manageable New Goals Each Week
It’s easy to become overwhelmed when trying to change your life, and beginning with too many goals at once is setting yourself up for failure. Human beings are creatures of habit, so to really create change, you must start with a few healthy habits, like running in the morning, and get them ingrained in your brain. From there, you can build upon your progress and continue to tackle further improvements. Once you have your list of goals figured out, try setting one diet-related goal and one exercise-related goal per week and resolving to stick with them. That way you will be improving both areas at once, in a way that seems manageable for you.
Consult a Life-Coach Directory
If you’re struggling with getting motivated and defining goals for your life, don’t be ashamed to reach out and ask for help. Bad habits can become deeply ingrained and many people need an outside presence to help encourage them to change. A life-coach directory will connect you to many highly qualified life coaches in your area and help you determine the one that is best for your particular situation. By entering in a specific city and state or zip code you can find a large list local to your area. For example, by inputting Detroit, Michigan, all the available life coach Detroit area choices will be provided, along with all of their qualifications, specialty areas and reviews. Life coaches care deeply about helping others, but they are also often people who have overcome many challenges themselves, such as weight loss, or recovery from depression and drug addiction. When you find the right life coach, you can rest assured that he or she will not give up until you are well on your way to becoming the person you believe that you can be.
Making change is always difficult, no matter how much support you have. The hardest part of change is taking that first step, so if all you do today is write out a list of goals, you have already made an important move in the right direction. Where you go from there is up to you.
Image Credit: Mark Sebastian
