Hello, hello. Welcome to my third Wellness Success podcast episode. This is where I discuss health, wealth, and accountability tips so we can live our best line. My name is Dr. Martin Canal and I am a health wellness and accountability coach, and I have been a nurse for over 26 years now. Is my expert opinion, and it is no way, shape, or form any medical advice. So if you feel the need to get medical help, please reach out to your medical professional. This episode is all about self-improvement. You know, September is self-improvement month and now being September. Actually with 2022, I have been talking about self-improvement this whole month, and it is a very important topic because as an individual we all need to be improving ourselves. I am sure that you guys are aware of this quote. The only constant in life is change. This Greek philosopher named Iraq said, the only constant thing in life is change. Now you have two choices. Either you decide to do something to change yourself so that you can grow as a person, or change will make you do things that you probably. Do not wanna do. It's up to you. Now, with that said, let's talk about self-improvement because I know that all of you want to be able to manage, change and decide what, how your life is gonna go, what path you are gonna take to move forward. What is self-improvement? Well, just like the word says, you improving yourself with whatever activity, whatever hobbies, whatever things that you feel that will make you grow as a person. Now I have a couple of tips for self-improvement month. That I'm gonna be sharing with you today, the most important one that you have to do first is having a mindset shift towards self improvement, meaning you have to believe that is important for you to improve yourself. Now, how do you do a mindset? Well, what I recommend is that first of all, you have to listen to you. You have to listen to your inner talk. You have to listen to yourself because you have got to assess how you talk to you, meaning do you have a positive talk to move forward? Or do you have a negative talk which will keep you from advancing forward? It is very, very important because this is how you be able to make that shift. Now, once you've decided to have this positive talk with yourself. By the way, when you're listening to your inner talk, you have to be quiet. You have to listen to your thoughts. You have to listen to your subconscious. They're sending you messages. You have to listen to yourself so that you be able to interpret what your mind is telling you, and you'll be able to move. Now once you move forward, you can set goals for yourself and your goals can be very simple as I wanna learn a new language, or I wanna start walking in the park three times a week so I can be physically healthy. Goals are very important to set because this will help. To plan what you have to do in order to reach your goal. So your goals, once you write them down, they have to be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely. This is what we call smart tips. Meaning you are gonna write down exactly what you're gonna do to reach the goal. For example, as I said before, you're gonna walk three times a week in the park for 30 minutes, rain or shine, you. It has to be measurable. The 30 minute part is the measure part of it. Okay. Or if you want to lose weight, you're gonna lose five pounds in three months As measurable, attainable, you wanna make sure that you put a goal that you know you can reach. You're not gonna write down that you wanna lose a hundred pounds in three months. It's, it's not gonna happen. It's not realistic. The R in smart, realistic is not, and has to be timely, meaning. You'll be able to reach. Your goal is gonna be a, a long term goal or short term goal. You have to have a clear idea of how and how long your goal is gonna be for so you, before you can reach it. Now, the way that I think about self-improve. I divide in three categories. You have physical, psychological, and social. Psychological can be also mental. Now, psychologically, what are you gonna do to improve yourself? And it all has to do with the way your body moves, the way you hold your body. So what are you gonna do to. Your physical health? Are you gonna start exercising? Are you gonna eat right? Are you going to, I don't know, take on a new hobby, like dancing? What are you gonna do to infuse, improve your physical health? Let's face it, we are all getting. My mission is to reach out to women over 40 because I know that there are some changes in the body that happens more rapidly once you reach 40 and. Making sure that you take care of your physical health is an important way for you to prevent some kind illness that will happen in your future. For example, you can help preventing by having high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, okay? All that can be taken care of if you. You can prevent a stroke. My mother, what happened to my mother, she had the stroke when she was in early forties. She was not exercising, she was not eating right. She was stressed out. She was overworked and all that took a toll on her and boom, stroke, and that affected her whole. Now the other category for stress, stress, I mean self improvement is psychological or mental. What are you gonna do to improve your mental health? If you remember what I talked about in episode two about stress management, okay, this is a big part of it. Are you gonna learn to meditate? Are you gonna have a list of affirmations that you're gonna tell yourself every day and you're gonna start with? I am. I am confident. I am successful. I am strong. I am beautiful. I am a great friend. I am a great mother. Putting the I am in front of it. You gonna st threaten the affirmation and you as, as more that you say it all the time, every single day, your subconscious mind is gonna believe it and you are gonna become stronger. You're gonna become confident, you're gonna have clarity. You'll be rocking, baby. So what are you gonna do to improve your psychological health? Are you gonna go out with friends? Are you gonna increase your network of people? Are you gonna take a new language? Are you gonna go to school and learn a new craft or learn a new hobby or learn a new career? Are you gonna learn about money management? Are you gonna travel and learn a new culture? What are you gonna do to improve yourself as an individual, psychologically, mentally? And then my last category is social. I already mentioned increasing your circle of friend and networking. Big, big, big, big, big for me in terms of improving myself socially. Getting out of your comfort zone and reaching out the people is a step for you to improve your social. Getting out there, going to events, going to conferences, going to taking a Zoom class is a way to increase your social network. So what are you gonna do to improve yourself? And even though it's September is self-improvement month, I believe that it should be practiced all year long because change happens all year long and you need to keep up with change because you wanna be able to decide where your path is gonna take you. Not somebody. Whatever goals you set out to do, make sure that you write them down because if you see them every day and you can post them all over the place in your house, in your office, on your phone, and reach for these goals, improve yourself, grow as an individual. Be a role model to others because as they see you growing, they will wanna grow with you because they know that you will leave them behind. Always try to be in a circle of people that are higher than you so that you can reach that next level and you can keep on going up and up and up. It's very important. You cannot stay still. It's like when you at work in your career, you have to advance with technology. You have to advance with everything that is going on around you or else they'll fire you and you cannot say that you don't wanna advance. They will fire you in the healthcare. every day is a new day with new technology, new medication, new ways to communicate with people. You know, before you would go to the office to have an office visit. Now everything can be done, you know, virtually, even now at work, you can work virtually, you can work from. That's technology for you. You have to advance with times. You cannot stay behind. You get, you will be left behind and now you will try to catch up and you won't be able to because you'll be too much to catch on, and then you'll be frustrated. You'll be stressed. And then it will lead to depression, to anxiety, to fit to all the symptoms that I previously talked about. So with that said, I want you guys to make sure that you focus. On yourself, that you put yourself first, that you improve yourself, that you rise with everybody, because everybody, depending on the circle that you are, they're moving forward, baby. They are moving forward, and if you stay behind, they will leave you behind and they will not wanna be around you because you will drag them. So keep working on yourself. Keep being a positive role model. Reach out to the next level. Thrive in your environment. Always think about the next thing you wanna do. Once you've reached these goals, set up new goals and enjoy your life. It's all about living a productive, passionate, joyful life. So until next time, guys, thank you for listening to my third podcast. And I have to think about my fourth one, but I will be coming with more health, wellness and accountability tips for you. So stay tuned for my fourth podcast. And until then, my name is Dr. Martin Canal. And take care of yourself. Put yourself first because it's all about you living your best life. Thank you.