Priorities and Consequenses

I had an interesting conversation with a client today.

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Why do we use the words “I was good” or “I was bad” when we think about our week as it pertains to our nutrition and fitness goals? We tend to moralize ourselves based on if we could’ve performed to different standards, yet those standards are completely arbitrary and usually unattainable. Especially for women, we feel if we are not constantly working to improve our looks and we didn’t make our lives 100% revolve around improving our physical appearance, we are not worthy. Then the check in conversation usually looks like “I was bad”.

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One thing I like to point out to clients as we meet on a weekly basis is that your goal for each week is completely dependent on YOUR own priorities. This particular client had her daughter in town for a week. She did not track, workout, or focus on losing weight last week, so felt as if she had done a “bad” job. But, through our conversation, what we learned was her priority was not weight loss last week. Her priority was her daughter. It is ok for your priorities to change.

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Now, what we do have to understand is there are consequences to our actions. Her consequence was she did not lose weight last week. However, if she would’ve chosen to spend her time worrying about getting to workouts, what food she was eating, tracking and weighing and measuring, she would’ve spent less time with her daughter and that would’ve been the consequence. My job as a coach is not to tell you what should be more important to you. It is to help you come to your own conclusions about what YOU personally find more fulfilling for the week ahead. It is my job to remind you of all your options, to remind you of the goals you set in place, and to help guide you to the answer that is most fulfilling to you with all of that in mind.

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I challenge you to stop placing moralization on your choices and start wondering if your choices are truly fulfilling you or not. Our barometer for success should rely entirely on if we are making choices in line with what is most important to us, not what we (or others) THINK should be most important to us.

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Hiring a coach can be a very useful way to start learning how to answer questions about what is most important in your life, how to balance weight loss goals with other life events, and have someone remind you about what goals you set in place for yourself. If you have any questions about this process, reach out to me and let’s chat about how we can make you feel more fulfilled.