What does it need to look like to tell yourself you're doing a good job? You know... for healthy habits, healthy living, finding a healthy weight for you and the kids?
Go grab a pen and paper. Go on, I'll be here waiting for you. ;-)
I invite you to write it all down:
- menu/meal plan
- exercise routines
- sleep schedule, duration, consistency
- hydration: amounts, choice, timing
- family social activities
- how does your healthy family talk to each other
Now… are you ready?
Shred the paper. Toss it out.
This list is your manual. It is an idealized version of what it needs to look like, and that ideal in and of itself is not helping you. It’s actually hurting you. Because all you see is the distance between you and the ideal. That distance will always be there, because ideals are not made of real life.
How often do you beat yourself (and your family, figuratively of course) up over how far you have to go to reach your ideals?
Just notice that you have a manual. Notice what you think it needs to look like, including what others have said that you should add to the list, and what you threw in there too.
And then discard it.
What do you do when you throw away the manual? You get the opportunity to create, starting with what you have right now.
Let’s take an inventory of what you have right now, what is working? How far have you already come, what have you learned about your body and your family? And what do you want to build upon going forward?
Our manuals are often lists of what we need to change, fix, or replace. But the inventories, that’s what exists right now. Take the time to look at what is already working for you and then build upon them.
In the podcast, you will hear how I took the manual for the podcast… what it needed to sound like, what I had to do to record, and I tossed it. And I recorded the episode along the North Shore of Oahu, with the waves crashing in the background. My gift to you. ;-)
Mahalo and Aloha,
Wendy
Check out the Family in Focus with Wendy Schofer, MD Podcast!
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