The Art of Pivoting: How an Agile Mindset Enhances Your Health Goals

As the new year approaches, many of us find ourselves reflecting on the past year and contemplating the changes we want to make in the coming months. But as you prepare to set your health goals for the new year, I encourage you to embrace both intentionality and agility. 

Too often, we expect the journey toward our goals to be linear. But when we move away from rigidity and focus on building habits aligned with your identity and values, the outcome is often much more positive. In this episode, we look at the importance of clearly defining your goal, understanding the deeper reasons behind it, and being prepared to navigate the unpredictable nature of the journey, making adjustments as you go.

References

Cal Newport’s podcast Deep Questions

Audio Stamps

00:52 - Dr. Rentea explains why this time of year is always a good time to do a review of your year and look at what you did and didn’t accomplish.

02:00 - Dr. Rentea shares a recent scenario from Cal Newport's “Deep Questions”, a podcast which offers advice about cultivating focus and productivity. Dr. Rentea draws similarities from this to setting new health goals for the year.

06:16 - It’s important to make your health goal for the year, but to also know the “why” behind it.

07:55 - Dr. Rentea gives a personal example of a health goal she has set for herself and the driving reason behind it. 

11:00 - We find out why you need to be agile when it comes to your goal and why you have to be willing to look at things through a different lens each week.

14:00 - You get to set the goal you want to achieve but make it realistic to start with and aim for a 1% upgrade each week.

Quotes

“Yes, I want you to make the goal, but then I want you to focus more on the identity and the values and who you need to be to achieve that.”

“I need to know how it is foundational to your core and your identity because that will keep you going.”

“Part of you being agile means you're willing to look at things in a different lens weekly. You're willing weekly to look at, ‘Is this working or not? Do I like what is happening? What am I willing to do differently?’”

“We can have a big vision, a big goal. But then we see week to week what actually works in your universe and allows you to flex more. It allows you to be agile. It allows you to pivot.”

“When they say it's a lifestyle, it means in all scenarios, you figure it out. It means you don't just bounce at the first moment of inconvenience.”

“I want you to meet yourself where you're at. I want it to be realistic. I want it to be a 1 percent upgrade–something where you almost don't even think it's going to move the needle and you execute on that. And then the next week you get to make a bigger, bolder move.”

All of the information on this podcast is for general informational purposes only. Please talk to your physician and medical team about what is right for you. No medical advice is being on this podcast.

If you live in Indiana or Illinois and want to work with doctor Matthea Rentea, you can find out more on www.RenteaClinic.com

Transcript

0:29

Welcome back to another episode of the podcast. This is a unique scenario because I'm actually recording this in my car of all places, which I never do, but I'm sitting here waiting for my husband and kids and it's a little bit of a time when I got inspired because I was listening to some podcasts coming here and I thought this is perfect timing. I don't have my little microphone that I normally do or any of that, but I think it'll be all just fine. So heading into the new year, I always think about this is a time of year when I get really reflective with What has the past year looked like and I like to do this with patients as well to kind of look at okay, when did you come into the clinic? You know, what have we achieved up to this point? It might be, it might be very tangible things like total body weight loss percentage. It might be They are off multiple medications at this point, but then it's also these intangible things like they might have been able to go on a cruise and not think about food all the time. They may be now their relationship with food feels a lot, feels, effortless. Maybe they've built out a movement practice, you know, there's all these different things that we can look at. Right. And then there's just in your own life, you could look at, did you have a job change this past year? Did you maybe have a new grandchild come into the home? life is always happening. And so I find it's always a good idea at the end of the year here or the beginning of the year. So this is going to be January 1st. Maybe when you hear this, it's to look at, hey, what did this past year bring me right? Really doing that year end review. But then the natural thing that always comes around is Well, do you set a New Year's goal? You know what you want to achieve that year and things like that? Well, I was listening here recently to Cal Newport's podcast. I think it's called Deep Questions. I will link to it down below. I found out about this podcast from a really great coaching client of mine. I know she listens every week. So if you're hearing this. Thank you for that great idea. I love when patients or coaching clients tell me about great books that they're reading or podcasts because I find, I don't know about all of you, but I find that we all kind of get into a rut. I know recently I've been really looking for a new podcast, so by the way, feel free to Instagram message me if you have a podcast that you love and you're like, Hey, are you listening to this? I'm actively. on the hunt for looking for new ones. I kind of find, found recently here, they stopped investing as much money into podcasts being produced. And so there are some that I really love that I continue to listen to, but you know, your taste kind of changes over time. So anyway, if you have one, reach out to me, but this coaching client told me about him. And I've just been loving it. So if you don't know who he is, because I didn't, and I know he's big, so like don't come for me. But basically think productivity expert, a lot of people kind of ask questions on how they can best structure their time or what to do in different scenarios. And I find this fascinating because I'm always looking for how to be more efficient with my time. I'm someone that uses time blocking and I'm, The way I typically do it, I actually focus on results that I want. I don't just kind of, it's not just like we're going to work on this for a period of time. To me, I actually need certain things done. But anyway, but I've worked on this lots of years. Also becoming an entrepreneur, I've not ever struggled with managing my own time, but I find that, often people are like, well, I don't know if I had my own schedule, what I would do. And I have zero challenge with that, but I think it's because I stay very focused on what I'm doing with my schedule. Okay. So anyway, so to come back to the plot. He had a call here that I was listening to on the podcast and this person I want to say was like a software developer and they're working on an app and so they weekly have kind of two different types of tasks. So one of them is like physically this button doesn't work and needs to be fixed and it's like okay that's a concrete thing. And then the second area is a little bit more elusive. So one of what are the examples given was okay the speeding up the like load time of the website and things like that. And so he was asking him, hey. How do I schedule those type of things when I don't know how long they're going to take or I don't know Do I focus more on the concrete things or the abstract things? And these are really good questions because I find like whenever you get into this world with productivity experts It always seems so easy what they recommend, but then when you put it into your real life That's where the challenge comes in right and we can all see this with health That the concepts are not hard, but how do you actually practically put it into your life? This is one of the main reasons why I meet with patients monthly and at some point they get to understanding Oh, yeah, it's really simple what we're going over monthly, but to get to that place It usually takes a few months for someone to realize. Oh, yeah, it's not It is simple, but yet every season of my life looks different. Literally, usually quarterly people have new things popping up, and so to kind of just like work through that long enough where it feels easy for them. So anyway, coming back to that, what Cal Newport said, and I really liked this, he talked about how The things that are a little bit more not as concrete, I forget whatever word he used, that you need to be a little bit more agile with them. And that it doesn't work to plan them out weeks and months in advance. He gave this, he gave the analogy of how I guess like software developers used to plan out all these things years in advance, very conditional, like we'll do this and then we'll do that and then we'll do the next thing. And basically what ended up happening is a month into the project, none of it was relevant and they would have to entirely just kind of meet themselves where they're at. And this is what I see happening with health goals. So let's just stay focused for this episode on your health goal for the new year, because you might have many different areas of life you want to work on, but let's stay focused on your health goal. And this is typically what I see. It's a huge goal. I don't care if it's that you want to bring down your blood sugar, you want to lose weight, you want a more loving relationship with food, you It's usually not singular what you're gonna have to do to achieve that. So it's not like one thing and you're done, right? Like, okay, I get on a medication, I'm good. That's usually not the point. It's usually a medication, it's nutrition, it's movement. It's my mental thoughts about food. There's a million things that go into it. And so what I like, If we can bring what he said and bring a little bit over to the health aspect, I want you to make the goal. I want you to say what it is that you think you want. Now, number one, you're going to name it to claim it. You can't get something that you don't even know what direction you're headed. It's kind of like setting the GPS, right? You, you've got to know, okay, I mean, let me give you an example. There's a, there's a big difference between just losing weight. In general, or if you are wanting to do a body competition at the end of the year where you get on stage and have a certain, a certain body composition and your muscles are popping out, like radically different nutrition plans that we're gonna do. And so you need to know what the goal is. You really need to know the why behind it. And once you know that though, one of the tricky things becomes is that most people want to predict how the entire year is gonna go. Way number one that you know you're victim to this, just in case you're listening and you don't know that you fall into this, because you do, it's if you have thoughts that you're going to lose a pound or two per week, and that's going to occur indefinitely until you hit XYZ number. And so, before you ever even start working on the weight goal, you're like, yeah, by July I'll be there. Okay, that's like thing number one, because you have no idea how it's going to go. Yes, I want you to make the goal, but then I want you to focus more and this is bringing in James Clear Atomic Habits I want you to focus on the identity and the values and who you need to be to achieve that. When you do that you stop focusing on this result that like it ends up getting thrown out at the first Temptation the first loss of motivation anything like that, but if it's really to your core and it's really identity based And you know, I want to go after this you will stick with it longer let's give the example of, I'm going to give an example that I always give my own examples because I don't like to give patient examples just for privacy. Over two years ago, I'm, me and my family were on this vacation. One of the days we rented a pontoon boat. We're on a lake. It's all fun and everything. So, you know, you put the anchor down and then you get out and you swim at some parts of it. Right. And I was held back because I love to swim, like that's not the problem, but getting back in that pontoon. It was this Rickety little ladder and I knew I'm like I don't even know that I can pull myself out of the water from this ladder And I like this has always been one of my things actually if you live in a larger body You know what I'm talking about and I was like So I'm not even gonna get in that water at that point Because there was no like sure to walk to to like walk off or steps to use It was just this rickety little ladder and I was like, all right, I'm not gonna do it. At that moment It became very important to me after that date to say, I don't want my body to hold me back anymore. Now, here's the main thing for me. This is me personally. You can have a different journey for me personally, is never about the number on the scale. It's about physically what my body is capable of. And it's about health wise. So to me, as long as my blood sugar is controlled and my labs are looking in the right direction, like health wise, all those parameters, by the way, all that stuff improved with minimal weight loss. Okay, so we're not attaching your weight to your health anymore. I understand the two can be related and everyone thinks all the correlation causation. You can still work on a ton of health things and not have your weight change. But then there might be another reality where Yes, physically having this weight, I can work on my strength, but maybe I don't want to have to pull up another hundred pounds right out of that water. So then you might decide, okay, I want to work on my weight loss because I can't fit in a ride at an amusement park. I can't fit on the rides. The thing in the front won't click. Can't get myself out of the water if I'm in a lake. And by the way, you might not have even had these experiences recently because you might've been holding yourself back so much more. That's usually something that people come to me as like, you know, you've been sitting on the sidelines. Like you haven't even been doing all these things because you know, your body's like physically not capable of it and you get injured. Okay. So. When you have that core identity, like I have, this is actually my main thing going into this next year, but also it was last year. It was, I don't want my body to be physically holding me back anymore. I want my body to be strong and capable. So that dictated a lot of what I did. Nutrition was top priority. Making sure I got enough protein to support wanting to keep this muscle so I can be nice and strong as I'm working on this other phase. It was not about just the eating, just the moving. It was like, we're doing this, I like to call it functional fitness. I'm not really about how I look. I don't know, I've just never cared. You know, if you follow me long enough, you know, I'm someone that's always like, man, I wish I cared more. I wish I was like, oh, I really care what people think of me and what I'm wearing. But I don't. Anyway, so. That really dictated a lot of what I did. So, if you are coming up with things you want to achieve, I need to know the why behind it. I need to know how it is foundational to your core and your identity. Because that will keep you going. Now, that's part one is, yes, you set the goal, but you understand the intention, the identity behind it, because it's really going to fuel you. Here's thing number two, though, and this is coming back to what he was saying with being more agile with the goal, when you don't actually really know what's going to get you there. And it's a little bit more not as concrete. You have no idea what it's going to take to get there. You think you do. You've been socialized to think you do. Don't worry. I hear this all day long in the clinic. Every time I get someone new, they literally tell me they're like, I'm here because it didn't work. It didn't work just eating less calories and moving more and eating less and saying no to this and that it didn't work. So they're there for a different strategy. Part of you being agile means you're willing to look at things in a different lens weekly. You're willing weekly to look at, is this working or not? Do I like what is happening? What am I willing to do differently? I can tell you from my own experience, when I look like hindsight's always 20, 20, right? It's perfect. When you look back, you know how to assess everything. Every three to four months, I change as far as what I like that I'm doing movement wise and what I'm eating. What's been really helpful for me about that particular scenario is that I stopped expecting that I was going to find the eating plan that, that just for, for ever was going to be amazing. I change. My taste buds change. I change what I like to eat, when I like to eat, how I like to eat, my hunger levels, like just all of it. And so for me, it really works weekly to be like, where are we at? Let's just have a moment here too. If you're a woman and you're still on your cycles the week before your period, you might need more carbs. If you're, if you're doing a lot of, like a lot of endurance training and strength training, all these kind of things, your nutrition plan is going to look very different. So looking at, you know, that week, what's in front of me, what can it look like? Maybe it's a week where you need to eat out a lot. Maybe you're traveling. Maybe you know, okay, there's sports games every single night. And while I would love for you to like prep it on a Sunday and have it all prepped and you bring it with you. A lot of the times I just meet you in the plane of reality when I'm working with you and we say, all right, if you're going to go. to eat. Can we decide where you're gonna eat? And maybe you order this option when you're there or I'm a fan of like, split meals in the sense of you might bring a protein shake or you might bring some cottage cheese with something and then you have like an order of fries on the side. So you get like a little bit that you like there. But you're kind of bringing the other thing, but see how we can have a big vision, a big goal. But then we see week to week what actually works in your universe and allows you to flex more. It allows you to be agile. It allows you to pivot. That might be the biggest thing you work on this year. And you know why? Because that means that you for life can do this. When they say it's a lifestyle, it means in all scenarios, you figure it out. It means you don't just bounce at the first moment of inconvenience. Often though, the things are not realistic that you're asking yourself to do. And so I want to just throw out there that yes, you set this vision for what you'd like in the next year. I always give the example, like if I had a little magic wand, if you're a patient, I might've asked you this in the past, like if I had a little magic wand and I waved it, what is it that you want? Okay. Dream big. Amazing. Now this week, what are you going to do about it? And I want you to meet yourself where you're at. I want it to be realistic. I want it to be a 1 percent upgrade, something where you almost don't even think it's going to move the needle and you execute on that. And then the next week you get to make a bigger, bolder move. That's been me with this strength training journey. I'll do an episode in the future more about it when I'm a little bit more gathered on my thoughts with it. But it was something that was just the biggest roadblock ever. I could get behind walking. I built that out as a habit. Now I'm doing, you know, some jogging intervals, some running, some other things in there. But the strength training was, and by the way, it's like all my patients. If you're someone that, you know, I've, I've, I openly share that. I am on this health journey like anyone else. I have chronic obesity. I have to manage it like anyone else. And everyone's journey, you get to decide if you use medication or not. I'm sure that I am on one. You get to decide if you do surgery or not. You get to decide if you just do lifestyle and you're okay with wherever you're at, but you know that you are taking a HAYS approach, health at every size and at any size, and you are helping yourself at that capacity. We know that all of it is true and good and you get to decide. And you get to see what goal you want to achieve and why you get to pivot so think whatever you want at the beginning of the year. Set, set the goal, set the New Year's thing. I don't care what it is, but then can you at the same time say, and what this week am I going to do? And when I say make it realistic, I'm going to throw a little plug out there because I remember my, my medical assistant, she has said the best comments to me. If you ever, Tasha is my medical assistant in the clinic and she is really fit and she's someone by the way, and she has, she has shared that she's lost a lot of weight in the past and she. is really into fitness. So incredibly inspirational and motivational. Tasha actually knew me before I really went on this health journey. She's known me a lot of years at this point, and she always said the kind of like the first few weeks of the new year. Ah, because everyone's at the gym and she couldn't get to the equipment that she needed. So here's my thought that https: otter. ai Realistically, see, where do I want to start? Do I maybe, I always say to start with walking, right? But again, it's, it's, maybe you do one class a week, maybe you twice a week, if you have like days of work where you get out earlier, you plan those in, but you stop setting yourself up for the seven day a week goal that you know you're going to fail. You stop setting yourself up for that. Alright, this was longer than I expected, but kind of just to recap here. Look at your previous year. What did you accomplish? What didn't you? Now at this point, let's look future to 2024 because hopefully you're hearing this in the beginning of the year. If not, you're catching it later. Just as good because you at any point can do this. I frankly think that any opportunity is a good time to reevaluate whether it's your birthday. Whether it's the kids going back to school in October, sorry, August, September, or whether it's a new year. Like there's a lot of times when you can be contemplative and reflective. So you think about what would you like to achieve in a dream scenario? Okay, then now today, what am I this next week going to do about it? What does the week look like? What's realistic? You stop discounting the wins. You really realize, I'm so proud of you for doing this. I'm so proud of you for showing up and figuring it out and doing all that. All right, I am going to end it here. I hope you have an amazing, I hope you had an amazing new year. I hope you have a great start to the new year here and I want to put out there, if you are loving this podcast, please leave a review wherever you're listening. It really helps us to spread the message. All right, we'll talk soon.