Many of the clients that I work with are all working moms who want to do the right thing, to be an example of for their children so that they will learn how to live a healthy lifestyle and make those healthy choices. Unfortunately, these moms struggle with being an example to their children.
It’s tough. I totally get that. When you are are working mom trying to juggle work, home and family, sometimes it seems that while the intentions are good, there just aren’t enough hours in the day to get it done.
Luckily, I’ve found that there 3 simple things that you can do to get started:
1.) Choose 1 seemingly insignificant healthy change that you can make every day.
This can be as simple as choosing a simple, but healthy breakfast, like a protein shake. This becomes your go-to breakfast every morning- weekday, weekend, vacation… it doesn’t matter. Practice doing this for 6-8 weeks and you will experience something really incredible: you will have a sense of accomplishment. You’ve been able to stick to making a simple change consistently and now it’s become an automatic choice. Kind of like brushing your teeth every day. You don’t think about it, you just do it. Why? Because you’ve been doing it your entire life.
2.) Change your mindset by making time for you.
You are important. I think we all know that we need to take some time for ourselves, but we don’t do it because there are so many other responsibilities (like our kids). I get that because I’m just like most of you. But making time for yourself doesn’t mean isolating yourself for 30 minutes or even 10 minutes. It simply means focusing on YOU. This is where step 1 comes in. By making that 1 healthy change for yourself, you are making time for you. You are doing something for yourself. You are doing something that will benefit you. The key is to realize that this counts as something that you are doing for yourself.
3.) Be patient.
Exercise patience with yourself. We live in an instant gratification and everything needs to happen immediately. Instead, we need to slow down with everything. The faster we make changes to our lives, especially when it relates to making healthy changes, the shorter lived those changes will be. Making lifestyle changes takes practice. We can’t expect to make a decision to start making healthy choices one day and expect them to stay that way forever. Think about learning how to play an instrument. You may decide one day to learn that instrument, but it takes time- sometimes a lot of time- to learn to play a simple song. It takes practice, consistent practice over a long period of time until you can consider yourself to be a decent instrumentalist. The same holds true for your healthy lifestyle. Being patient is such a critical part of making a change that it is one of the first questions that I ask people when I start working with them: How patient are you?
There you have it 3 simple ways that you can start doing to make those healthy lifestyle choices and be an example for your children.
Let me know you they work for you.