Getting Personal About My Wellness Journey
I was honored to be interviewed on The Mompire podcast where I chatted with Ashley Meyer about my personal experience with health and wellness and how it led to my intense passion for helping other moms live their healthiest, happiest and most fulfilled lives.
I don’t often focus on my personal stories on the blog because I truly feel that wellness is a personal journey for everyone. So, sharing my story on a podcast always feels outside of my norm and honestly, a little uncomfortable.
There are so many websites and blogs out there that tell you how someone overcame a health challenge and why you should follow exactly what they did to get the same results. And, although those blogs and articles mean well, it’s not a healthy or effective strategy.
I want to take a minute to explain why.
In the interview, I talk to Ashley about what wellness is because we live in a world where “wellness” is a term that is used for just about everything. (We even talk about how I saw a sign at a car shop advertising for “Auto Wellness”! What?!)
Wellness is the process of creating awareness and intentional thoughts around your life as a whole, and continually evolving your actions to fit your ideal state of well-being for that specific moment in time.
Let’ break that down…
- Wellness is a process.
- Awareness and intentional thoughts are a large part of the process.
- It’s about looking at your life as a whole (not just fitness and nutrition).
- What you do to feel your best today might not be what works for you a week from now.
We are all unique people, with unique personal values, unique life experiences, and unique challenges in our life, which is why I often hold back from sharing “this is what I did, and you should do it, too” kind of stories.
But, as I listened back to this podcast interview, I thought about the distinction between inspiring and preaching.
Inspiration vs. Preaching
Inspiration is a helpful part of creating a wellness vision and creating goals or getting into action. After all, how do you know what the possibilities are unless you learn what’s possible?
Anyone who has achieved great things in their life had a source of inspiration to get started.
Inspiration can be a great tool to use in your wellness journey, as long as it doesn’t turn into comparison, guilt, or unwanted pressure.
The next time you see a social media post or before and after picture of someone, ask yourself if it’s helping you feel inspired to know what’s possible, or if you start to compare yourself to them, feel pressured to do what they are doing to achieve those results even though it doesn’t align with your personal values, or you feel guilty or shame for your personal actions being different than someone else’s.
If it’s healthy inspiration, you should be able to say, “good for them!” or “That’s so great they did that!” without having to feel “less than” or criticize yourself.
When someone is preaching about their results, it often leaves you feeling like you haven’t done enough or you’re not trying hard enough. Although this may work for a short boost of external motivation, the long term effects often lead to feeling like a failure and quitting if you can’t maintain the level of effort they have put in to get the results.
Again, you’re two different people. Different life circumstances, different life challenges, different interests and values, so what they did to achieve whatever goal they were after may have worked great for them, but it might not work for you, and that doesn’t mean you failed.
Own Your Wellness Journey
We are all on our own personal journey, and just like driving a car, there are several ways to approach that journey. Choosing the path that works best for you, aligns with your personality, timeline, lifestyle, and all the other factors that come into play, are key factors to turning your goals into long-term lifestyle habits that feel like a natural part of your life.
If you’re someone who is constantly watching what others are doing and comparing yourself, or you have felt like a failure when it comes to achieving your own ideal state of wellness, and you want to start feeling more empowered about your own wellness journey without feeling like you just can’t keep up with everyone’s “look how I did it” stories, feeling guilty about something not working, or being preached at about how you should make changes in your life, this is where a certified wellness coach can help.
If you’ve never experienced working with a coach before, you might be surprised to find out how freeing it can feel to be the owner of your own life and well-being and deciding how you want to take action, instead of following how someone else did it. I talk all about the things you might be surprised to know about working with a wellness coach here.
If in reading this blog, you take one thing away, let it be this – You are an intelligent, capable person who has the ability to live your healthiest, happiest, and most fulfilled life! I know you have what it takes, and I hope The Driven Mama blog offers you plenty of inspiration to get started and keep going.
You’ve got this!
