Stephanie Banach is the go-to yoga therapist & wellness coach for individuals who want to reduce stress & anxiety so they can live a healthy lifestyle with ease AND be truly present for the people and moments they treasure. Her clients appreciate learning ways to slow down, practice self-compassion, and more deeply connect with others and nature.
Do you start with the best of intentions to live your healthiest, best life, just to feel that trying to follow the prescribed plan is leaving you more stressed, anxious, or overwhelmed? It doesn’t have to be that way! By developing a personalized approach and learning mindful practices, you can not only create the healthy lifestyle you want, but you can also sustain it!
What is a healthy lifestyle?
While a specific answer will be different for each person, a healthy lifestyle is one that honors your physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and social well-being. It includes more than the food you eat and how much you move. How each person reaches their optimal well-being is going to look and feel different depending on such things as their values, priorities, season of life and personality. When you take into consideration your unique, amazing self, your dreams, strengths, struggles, and all the things that make you the beautiful, wonderful person you are, then you can create a healthy lifestyle that best serves and honors you.
Self-awareness
Before you start writing the goals you want to achieve with your healthy lifestyle, spend some time reflecting on your values, priorities, and the experiences and personality that make you, you. What are your values? Write them all down and then highlight the top three. What relationships in your life do you want to prioritize? How do you want to feel each day? Do you need more or less alone time? How much sleep do you need to feel at your best? What responsibilities are yours alone, the ones you can’t delegate or eliminate?
Take some time getting to the heart and soul of who you are. Maybe spend time in nature reflecting or clear a space free of distractions to journal on it. Go back to it as often as needed until you can capture the details of who you are and what matters most to you.
What is your intention for creating a healthy lifestyle?
A healthy lifestyle encompasses all the areas of your life. And it can feel overwhelming if you are trying to make changes in all areas, all at once. To break it down, begin by asking yourself what it is you are trying to gain with the changes you are making? Or how would a healthy lifestyle support your values, priorities and dreams?
For example, do you want to have more energy to keep up with your children or all that is on your bucket list? Or do you want to prevent the heart disease that robbed years of life from those dear to you? Perhaps you want to move with more ease? Or maybe you want to create more balance in your life so you can be part of all the memories your family is creating?
When you can clearly define what it is that you want to achieve and how you want to feel, then you can more easily begin taking steps to get there. “I want to have the energy and attention to happily chase my children on the playground” is more motivating than “I want to lose 25 pounds”. Let the self-awareness practice lay the foundation for setting your intention. Together, these two practices can anchor you for the other practices.
Set an affirmation
Once you have the intention for what and why you want to accomplish and how you want to feel, then you can choose an affirmation that supports it. This can be an “I am” statement, such as “I am worthy to set time aside to honor myself” or “I am capable of speaking my truth with confidence” or “I am able to say no and still be a kind person”. An affirmation can also be a short quote or verse that speaks to you.
Even if you don’t first believe the affirmation you set, continue to practice it until you do. Practice saying it when you wake in the morning, when you are brushing your teeth, before you begin a meeting or open the door when you get home. Weave it into your day. Put up reminders. Journal on it. Breathe it in and out. Embrace it.
Create specific tangible action steps
Once you spend time connecting with your values, priorities, and creating boundaries around them, and you have your intention set on why you are creating a healthy lifestyle, you can begin taking tangible action steps.
For example, if you want to create a healthy lifestyle that gives you the energy and patience for the little people you love at home and the people you lead at work while being truly present with the people you are with, then you can personalize your approach to best serve you. Perhaps, you want to block off three nights a week where you are home for dinner and activity with your children. Then you can look into what adjustments you need to make so that that can happen.
Maybe at work you find yourself munching more on sweets than you would like and you are feeling the highs and lows throughout the day. You can make little, lasting changes such as allowing five minutes between meetings or tasks for you to take a mental break, stretch or go for a short walk.
Keep peeling back the layers until you know you have the strategies in place that will help you to honor your intention, giving yourself compassion along the way. There will be days when you have to rest more or be more flexible. Honor and accept that it’s part of the journey. It’s helpful to choose one or two areas to work on at a time so that you aren’t feeling overwhelmed making too many changes at once.
Practice self-compassion
According to Dr. Kristen Neff, self-compassion “simply involves doing a U-turn and giving yourself the same compassion you’d naturally show a friend when you’re struggling or feeling badly about yourself.”
Self-compassion is a meaningful practice that can be learned and practicing it helps you to reach your goals with greater ease. When you have setbacks, challenges, or unexpected life happenings, and treat yourself with compassion, you will move forward more smoothly.
Dr. Neff’s research shows that people who practice self-compassion are more likely to “focus on learning and personal growth, maintain healthy work-life balance, sleep well and have a strong immune system, and feel happy, optimistic and satisfied with their lives.” Self-Compassion: Theory, Method, Research & Intervention
Get curious about what is going on. Instead of telling yourself that you have no self-control or you can’t do it, be inquisitive and discover the emotions and thoughts around your actions.
Perhaps a habit, such as having ice cream every night, is something you do because it reminds you of nights with your Grandma laughing over bowls of ice cream. Or maybe you developed a habit so long ago that now it’s something you do without thinking. Or perhaps you are quick to say yes to everything because you don’t want to disappoint people, something that may be rooted from childhood.
When you start getting curious instead of critical, you can better understand your patterns and make any changes with compassion. Being mindful of your thoughts, actions, and emotions gives you an opportunity to practice and grow in self-compassion.
Self-compassion also takes in how you talk to yourself. Are you being encouraging or negative? Are you speaking the truth or are you allowing one mistake or setback to define you? (Is one stumble along the way now having you define yourself as a failure?) When you start talking to yourself like you would to your best friend, you will give yourself the compassion you need to overcome challenges, setbacks and mindset struggles.
It is not all or nothing
Reflect on your mindset and your approach. Do you find yourself not working out if you can’t do it for a full 6o minutes? Or if you break your diet at lunch, do you find yourself abandoning it all together the rest of the day? Or are you signing up for every committee at work or church? Are you trying to buy everything organic or make everything homemade?
When you adopt an all or nothing approach to living healthy, you may feel like you are on a constant rollercoaster. Days you are adhering to your strict standards may make you feel like you are on top, yet the moment you break a rule or things don’t go according to plan, you feel yourself crashing down.
By learning to set boundaries and realistic expectations (and practice self-compassion!), you can reach your wellness goals in a way that fits into your lifestyle. When you cut something completely out of your diet, which unless medically needed, it can be more consuming of your thoughts than if you allowed something in moderation. By finding one activity that supports your social well-being, you can find another activity to honor your physical well-being, perhaps even with a friend! Check to see if you are also creating boundaries around rest so that you give yourself a chance to recharge.
Go back to your intention for creating your healthy lifestyle. Notice if your expectations or rules are supporting how you want to feel and live. If adhering to your high standards is draining you of your energy, yet you want to have more energy to play with your children, then you can focus on this and make adjustments accordingly. If you want to feel more connected to others, yet your strict diet or late-night office hours are keeping you from engaging in social events, then you shift your focus to these areas.
By learning to create and accept balance, you will not only reach and sustain your wellness goals, but you will enjoy the journey!
Journaling
Another helpful part of sustaining a healthy lifestyle is regular reflection and adjustments. Journaling is a great way to capture your thoughts and generate new ideas. It allows an opportunity to explore more of what’s going on and to see (and celebrate!) the successes you’ve made along the way.
There’s no one right way to journal! One idea is to write down Physical, Emotional, Intellectual and Spiritual as four headings on a page and then jot down how you are doing in each area. Another way is to freestyle, writing whatever comes up for you.
When you allow for a time to observe, you can make changes that support you in continuing to move forward. You can also take note of any changes that are happening in your life and what adjustments need to be made to your action steps. If it’s a busy season at work, you are caring for a loved one or the start of summer and your children are home more, take note of that and reflect on how you can still honor your values, priorities and wellbeing.
Conclusion
Creating a healthy lifestyle is a personal journey, there is no one size fits all! With a little extra effort upfront to better understand yourself and a few breaks along the way to check-in and make any necessary adjustments, you will have a map that supports you in all your stages of life regardless of the surprises, challenges or blessings along the way.
Next steps
Do you want support in taking a holistic, stress-free approach to create a healthy lifestyle? If so, you are invited to reach out to Stephanie Banach. She will meet you wherever you are on your wellness journey and share with you practices to help you reach and sustain your goals with compassion, curiosity and ease. You can connect with Stephanie on LinkedIn or by checking out her website, Heart and Wings Yoga.
Read more from Stephanie Banach
Stephanie Banach, Certified Yoga Therapist & Wellness Coach
Stephanie Banach, owner of Heart and Wings Yoga, supports individuals striving to live a healthy lifestyle but feel stressed overthinking to make the perfect decision. She gets it! She too was striving to create the cleanest, leanest, greenest lifestyle, but it was counterproductive, she felt more stressed than healthy and energized! And it was taking a toll on her relationships.
After working on herself to create the balance and contentment she wanted, she now encourages her clients to reach their goals with compassion and curiosity so that they too can have less stress and more happiness. Stephanie’s clients release the pressure of perfection and have more fun with the people and activities they love most!
Live Mindfully, Not Perfectly!
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