Checklist: Is Your Healthy Lifestyle Program Right For You?
Here’s the secret to developing new, healthy habits and making them a comfortable part of your everyday life:
- Choose a healthy lifestyle program that tailors your plan to your mindset, lifestyle, priorities and goals, and your specific health considerations
- Make sure your health coach is a good match for you. You’re looking for a collaborative style, someone who’ll be with you at each step as you develop new skills and strategies to get past roadblocks to a healthy lifestyle
When these two crucial elements are in place, you’re already ahead of the game!
Every good healthy living program has some things in common:
- Judgment-free assessment of your goals, priorities, health status and motivations — your “why”
- Comprehensive recommendations that address all the elements of health — food, activity, sleep, stress and more
- Realistic goals and progress milestones tailored to your personal goals and health objectives
- Practical, evidence-based strategies for moving to a healthier lifestyle, rather than generic advice that may not even be grounded in science
- Intrinsic and extrinsic rewards — extrinsic rewards to reinforce early successes, intrinsic rewards to help these new habits last forever
How can you tell when a healthy living plan is right for you? Look for signs like these:
You do more talking than listening. It’s your coach’s job to get the full story: what do you want to achieve, and why. For example, WellMind+WellBody coaches and clients use live video meetings to help you uncover your “why”, tailor your program recommendations, and work with you to make those changes real and lasting.
That can’t happen if the program’s built around lectures, videos and other one-way communication.
The program focuses on your positives, not their negatives. Your unique priorities, goals and health objectives should be the focus. Time spent on, say, presentations about national obesity and diabetes statistics doesn’t help you reach your goals. Remember: the right program is all about YOU – not the entire population!
Your short-term goals are achievable. A well-matched program helps you define objectives you can achieve, which builds confidence and excitement about tackling the next goal…and the next! It’s like building a house, one brick at a time. Programs that set unrealistic, aggressive goals just set you up for failure. Life’s too short for that!
Your milestones reflect your priorities. It’s your game, your goalposts! A strength conditioning milestone might be a big win for Anna, who works in a warehouse. For you, successfully following a new stress management strategy for seven straight days may be a huge win. Or simply making it a point to eat one new vegetable each week. Your milestones should be accomplishments you feel great about! If trying to reach them is making you miserable, rethink the approach, the goal, or both.
You stop judging yourself. The best program for you will help you build new ways of thinking about yourself and your health. It’ll help you redirect the energy you’ve been spending on guilt, anxiety or frustration towards positive change. It kicks old ways of thinking about yourself to the curb, and sets you up to be successful right away, and over the long haul.
Your program fits your schedule. Frequent and consistent consultation with your health coach is critical. That said — you’re probably super-busy, right? Look for a program that offers virtual meetings rather than requiring you to show up in person. If you travel or work variable shifts, make sure the program is flexible enough to handle that. You also want the ability to contact your coach between scheduled meetings, for example via email. You shouldn’t have to rearrange your life around your healthy lifestyle program.
You’re so excited about progress it’s the first thing you want to talk about. This can be anything from shocking your doctor with fantastic lab results, wanting to talk about breaking your walking record, or discovering how delicious roasted cauliflower actually is. Excitement is the ultimate test — if you’re feeling great, and energized about every next step, you’re definitely in the right program!
You now think of yourself as health-capable. You no longer see yourself as someone who tries yet fails — you begin to see yourself as someone who can make, and stick to, one positive change after another. You begin to realize that it’s no longer about your original goals…you’re just doing these things because you feel good about them.
Congratulations! You’re in the right program.