S2, E3: Finding Wellness in the Chaos of Holiday Season: A Practical Approach

Holidays and seasonal changes can be tough, as our resources and energy are often stretched thin, but could this be the BEST time to set health goals? This episode equips you with the strategy of achieving wellness amidst the chaos. Learn the power of setting short-term, flexible goals and the importance of self-awareness and patience. I'll share how to squeeze wellness activities into your schedule, effectively using even the smallest pockets of time to your advantage. Plus, learn the art of reassessing and re-strategizing your plans should you meet any hurdles along the way.

This episode will guide you in crafting a plan to navigate these demanding times and ensure that you're taking the best care of yourself and your loved ones. I'll share my personal experience and insights, and together we'll break down your wellness goals into smaller, manageable pieces. 

As always please remember, you're not in this alone, and I'm here to support you in your wellness journey.

Let's connect on IG @conversationswithtai @buildwithtai

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:02

Hello and welcome to Build With Chai , a podcast where moms and women who take care of everything and everyone can come together and figure out how to take care of ourselves . We will share our stories , our strategies and our solutions for building strength and empowerment in our bodies , for building peace of mind and calm amidst chaos in our lives , and for building more joy and more fun into our experiences . My goal is for you to leave this podcast with at least one tool that will help you build a life that you truly feel excited to wake up for and that you celebrate yourself for showing up for every night before you close your eyes . So if that sounds good to you , let's get into today's topic . Welcome , welcome , welcome . I'm so glad you're here . Thank you for joining me on Build With Chai , and let's just get right into the topic .

Speaker 1 0:54

This is something that I love talking about at this time of year . It goes against what most people tell me , and that is that this is the best time of year to work toward your health and wellness goals . I'm not going to say any of your goals , because I'm sure there are some goals that are a little bit more challenging to work on at this time of year , but health and wellness . This is the perfect time . Because it is busy , because it is stressful , because it is dark and cold outside , this is the best time to take the best care of yourself . And also because it is busy , because you are limited with time and maybe even resources . This is a great time because what we don't often realize when we wait until things calm down and things are more perfect and things seemingly seem like a great time to start , is all the time ahead of us where we will be stressed , lacking time and lacking resources . So why not set our goals and set our practices , set our strategies during a time when we already know it is going to be tough , and that way we give ourselves an opportunity to be more flexible , to be more patient , to build more grit and resilience and to have more self-awareness and self-responsibility . So I have been a trainer for 10 years and this is the slowest time of year in the fitness facilities .

Speaker 1 2:20

Everybody that works in the gym knows January 1st through the 30th is when the gym is going to pick up . People are going to set their New Year's resolutions and they're going to start coming in and then , around March , everybody is going to start to trickle off . And that is because when we set our goals at the beginning of the year , when we set those New Year's resolutions and we say you know , this year is going to be different , this is the year that I accomplish X , y and Z , we don't realize on January 1st that there's 354 , 355 days ahead of us that are not going to be as motivated , they are not going to be as perfect , and we don't have a plan for those days . So my opinion is that you use the busiest time of the year , the time when you have the least amount of energy , you have the least amount of motivation to create your goal or to create your plan around your goal . That will make you chunk it down into smaller pieces . That will make you really look at your schedule and find those little points or areas of time where you can maybe squeeze in 15 minutes here or 20 minutes here . It gives you a chance to give yourself a break . Really , I know we here have some grace , a lot , but it gives you a chance to just give yourself a break and realize that you can absolutely make progress when things are not perfect , as long as you show up consistently .

Speaker 1 3:51

You try again , and with 43 days left in the year today is November 20th , 19th , I don't know , but there's 43 days left in the year . You can set your goals two weeks out at a time . You can do 10 days worth of goals . We can do that four times before the end of the year . That gives us an opportunity to build self-awareness into our lives .

Speaker 1 4:15

If you set a goal let's say , to wake up 15 minutes earlier during the week so that you can start your mornings with a little bit more calm and filling your cup a little bit more before your kids wake up and before you run out into traffic Give yourself 10 days to do that . And if you're not successful over those 10 days , or if you accomplish it fewer days than you do did I say that right ? If you don't accomplish it , if your ratio is off , if you have more not done days than you do completed days , then you have a chance to kind of review and figure out why didn't I make it happen ? Did I not go to bed early enough ? Did I not set out my outfits the day before , did I not ? You know , whatever it is , you give yourself a chance to be aware and to be responsible for what went wrong and then try again .

Speaker 1 5:05

So now you have another 10 days and if you were successful , if you have more completed days than uncompleted days , now you can move on to the next thing . So if , for 10 days , you feel confident that you can wake up 15 minutes earlier , boom , you've done it . Maybe you did eight out of 10 . Great , now we can move on to the next goal . So what's the next goal gonna be ? Maybe I fit 10 minutes of meditation into that timeframe , or I do a 10 minute yoga routine , or I do 10 minutes of journaling , or whatever it is that will make you feel good for the day . That will set a positive tone for the day . So now you try that goal for 10 days and if you do well , great . You can add another goal for the remaining 10 days and if you're not successful , start again . That gives you an opportunity to build resilience . That gives you an opportunity to try and try again and try again and begin again as many times as you need to .

Speaker 1 5:58

But if we wait for the perfect time or a better time , we tend to think that that better time is what it's going to feel like down the line , and the reality is . It's just not , and so you can absolutely wait until the day when you have the most motivation and for many of us it is January 1st , the new year . But if you do that , you have to be very clear with yourself about what it looks like when things are perfect , and then what it looks like when things are perfect , and then what it looks like is that you're not what it looks like usually , what it's gonna look like most often , what it's gonna look like when you sleep through your alarm or you're . For an example from my life , my husband works until two o'clock in the morning and then doesn't get home until 3.30 am , so I can't go to the gym because I wanna let him sleep and I don't wanna leave the kids alone , right ? Whatever the case may be , whatever you know or is most likely to come up , you have to build that into your plans , and that is my take on it . Now is the best time to do that .

Speaker 1 7:08

This episode is releasing on a Sunday Hopefully you hear it in time to get 43 days worth of goal setting and do it anyway under your belt , and then when you wanna wake up , january 1st , 60 days either , when you wanna sleep , it just forces you to go to bed earlier and then you build in tools Like you can start a new goal if you need to right , because it will help you wake up . If we think about it , if we think about the goal setting process and what makes the circadian rhythm , what makes the successful goal setting process , you actually have to have several goals built into one bigger goal , right ? So if I have a big goal of I'm just gonna use a goal that is real in my life , I need to lower my A1C . What do I need to do to make that happen ? I need to make sure I'm managing my sleep , my stress . I need to make sure I'm drinking more water , staying hydrated , eating more vegetables , eating more protein . So I need to have a goal under all of those things and some really clear implementation strategies under each of those goals , right ? So it really is a process .

Speaker 1 8:09

Being successful at achieving anything really is a process , and it takes time to make a plan to accomplish those goals .

Speaker 1 8:15

So maybe you take the next month and a half to really drill down a plan for when things are going great , when things are not as great and when things are really awful . And when things are really awful is when we really need to take the best care of ourselves , right ? So I hope this was helpful . I hope this gives you some encouragement to think about this as a time where you can really create a strategy for yourself that works over the long term , because the reality is the right time , a better time , sunshine and rainbows those things come around every now and then , but the bulk of our life is spent in stressful times when we don't have a lot of time , we don't have a lot of resources , we don't have a lot of motivation , we don't have a lot of energy because there's a lot going on .

Speaker 1 8:58

So that's what I have today . I hope this was helpful , I hope it's encouraging and I hope it's supportive . If you want to continue the conversation , or if we could dive into it a little bit more deeply , please let's hang out at Coach Tai Blue on Instagram and leave me any questions concerns whatever you're struggling with most in this season of seasonal effective disorder , with the holidays , and if I don't have any answers , I am sure I could find them for you , but I just want you to know that we are in this together and all I really want is for us to build lives that we all feel loved and joyful in , so that our kids can feel the same All right until next time . Thanks for being here .