Finance Matters January 2013
Get Healthy and Wealthy... With a Little SWEAT!
by Janet Fulton, Director of Programs
All across the community, all over the Internet articles and messaging abound and even hit you in the face when you aren't looking. The particular messages I am referring to are the ones offering "simple steps" for your new 2013…simple steps to assist you in making the changes you want in your life. A boost to get you from where you are to where you "say" you want to be.
Since the health and wealth connection keeps popping up with greater and greater frequency of late I decided to do a simple Internet search to check in on the conversation. I wanted to see what tips and tools I could find. With search terms (healthy + wealthy) I quickly filled my computer screen with this somewhat interesting selection: Reasons to Save Money this Year Candace Bahar, CEA, CDFA and Ginita Wall, CPA, CFP…Top 10 Ways to Have a Truly Happy New Year Ginita Wall, CPA, CFP…Get Healthy and Wealthy The Dr. Oz Show…Secrets to Maintaining a Healthy Credit Score Financial Planning Association…How to Curb Your Spending Vices Brittany Castero CFP, etc. And another one by Brittany Castero that caught a little more than my eye, Yoga Does a Body and Financial Life Good. I actually read the complete article. Interesting.
Don't get me wrong…tips, tools, and encouragements are good and an important part of change. But, they are only a single part of the more complex process of motivating the endurance we need to have until the behavioral change we seek is the set of new behaviors we become. Every good and worthwhile dream (be it health and/or wealth) needs more. Dreams don't turn into real experiences without real actions. So what really helps us get past our declarations and into "healthy and wealthy actions?" What carries you further down your dream path than you have ever gone before? Let me come back to that in a minute.
Well, the New Year arrived and like many of you (pick your area of greatest challenge) I recognized I had fallen away from some of my exercise practices. It just felt good to rest for a while. So I did. Now the results of that action started to capture my attention. In fact, I felt sluggish and slow! I determined I needed to begin again. Now I know myself pretty well and I am very self aware. I also know that I am very strategic and planning comes easily to me. I could create a plan easy enough but how could I engage my heart and mind to carry me into new actions? So I set myself to engage my spirit for the change I wanted to become and did two things.
First, I had a good afternoon coaching relationship with one of my new W4W encouragement coaches. These are sessions encouragement coaches receive as part of our preparation and support for their volunteer service in our Encouragement Coach Networks. The challenge this encouragement coach was working on was one that involved going beyond creating and scheduling good workout action steps. It was a session focused on getting past…and rid of…the excuses for taking great actions. I was able to coach well while at the same time recognizing this was something I wanted to address in my own life. As I listen to my volunteer encouragement coaches I learn a lot from the way they craft their own actions and devise plans that are unique to them. It actually excites and stimulates my own actions in similar areas of desired change.
So…second, driving home I mused about my own desire to change physically past all of the great plans past all the excuses not to follow through, past past failure patterns that dog my feet. I, too, wanted to engage my heart. Something that would carry me past just thinking and planning and that would at least bump me a little way forward to get some energy to really engage the change I want to live. I started thinking about me and exercise. I recognized that my body "feels" better when it sweats during physical activity. Not to the max but just shifts from comfort to sweat effort. I started playing with the word SWEAT trying to think of it as an acronym (playing with language which is pretty much always fun for me). My first take was to make it into words that helped me strive forward…words like strategic, evaluate, act/action. It just didn't work. It was calling up all the task pieces of me instead of the creative interesting things that stimulate, excite and call me toward doing different things. So I adjusted my sail and turned in a different direction. With "aerobic gardening" and "leaf raking" as reference points (things that I want to get done and bring me a level of satisfaction in visual delights) different words came sprouting forward. What I discovered is my mind acknowledging and attacking the challenge more creatively with a truly interesting (to me) result. SWEAT…Slippery–Wishes–Engaged–And–Transformed! I like it! It calls to me! It encourages in me the FINAL change I really want to see. Not like SWEAT…Strategic-Work-Engaged-And-Tackled. I so felt the difference that when I arrived home I set the timer for 10 minutes and tackled a task I had put off for 3 weeks. Then I tackled two things later that evening that have been weighing me down since December 27th!
All this to say that some great coach approach questions and experiences helped me sit with and then engage the change I wanted to become. I honestly asked and answered the question, "What is one thing I could do to get focused on getting past…and rid of…the excuses for taking great exercise actions." "What could I do to re-engage my hopes and dreams for the healthy change I want to become?" I simply took a few minutes to use the same coach approach questions we have been sharing with our Encouragement Coaches for several years and applied them to my own creative thinking process. Now I have some inviting and compelling words to strengthen my focus. I've got them written on the opening screen of my phone so I see them every time I use my phone.
Don't just say you want to be wealthy. Don't just say you want to be healthy.
Engage your dream and get to the heart of what you have been putting off.
Take time to find out what you need to do to get rid of your excuses.
I know now I need to SWEAT…Slippery–Wishes–Engaged–And–Transformed!
Focus. Act. Live WELL!
