The One Thing That Will Transform Your Health
Angela Gaffney
Executive Coach Empowering People & Organizations | Transformational Leader | Board Facilitator | Keynote Speaker
OWN YOUR HEALTH. It’s the one thing that must take place if you plan to achieve your goals and live a life of health and happiness. Owning your health is about acknowledging your state of health and recognizing that you have full claim, authority and power to create a healthy body, mind and life for yourself. It is yours for the taking and now is the time to make it all happen.
I never once considered that I needed to take ownership of all aspects of my health until my health was deteriorating at such a fast pace that doctors told me to go home and prepare for “what was to come”, meaning the slow progression of a disease that would inevitably take my life. When given news such as this, it takes your breath away, it caused my world to stop in its tracks, and it made me take a deep look into the reasons why it could be happening.
At first, I blamed everything else for my ill state of health and questioned how I could be put through such hell. But after a couple months of my ranting I started a big internal investigation and came to the conclusion that everything about my life was contributing to my fast deterioration.
While I exercised pretty consistently I had a few other things working against me…I always functioned at 100 miles per hour, putting everyone else’s needs before my own, committing to things I didn’t have time for, eating a lot of sugar and nutrient-void foods, drinking a few diet cokes a day to keep my energy up, staying up way to late and waking too early, worrying about what everyone thought of me versus just living in my truth, and missing out on a lot of nutrient-rich veggies, beans, whole grains, greens and nuts and seeds.
I simply did not own my body, my mind, or my life. I just existed and thought it’d all just work out.
I’ve learned that it doesn’t happen this way, we must each make a daily effort to rise to the occasion, make intentional choices that serve us and own every bit of our happiness, our health and our life.
What part of your health do you need to take ownership of?
Here’s a little exercise to get your internal investigation off to a solid start: Answer the following questions as quickly as possible, no need to analyze, just answer:
1. I always have good intentions but never really get around to ______________________.
2. The three things that are holding me back from just getting it done are:
1)
2)
3)
3. If I were to consistently accomplish my good intention, I would feel.. _______________________________________________________________________.
4. If I were to take my last breath today, I would regret not having done this for myself because________________________________________________________________.
5. If it is meant to be, its up to me! I will do these three things for the next 30 days to take ownership of this one area of my life:
1)
2)
3)
By doing this exercise, you’ve identified your starting point, your barriers, what it means to you to get the job done, and the steps you’ll take to make it happen. The final part of the exercise is to share your details with one person who will provide positive encouragement to help keep you on track. Lastly, keep your answers where you can read them daily; this is the best reminder to own your health and keep moving forward.