Ep 128 Small Habits Big Moments

What if the small things you're already doing are quietly setting you up for the moments that matter most?

In this episode, Carly shares a client story that stopped her in her tracks this week and gets personal about  hospital, how a bare-bones approach to fitness kept her in the game through years of hospital visits and what happened when life gave her a bit of breathing space.

This episode is for you if you've ever looked at what you're managing and thought: is this even enough? Spoiler: it is. You're raising your floor.

Topics covered:

→ Why fitness should be about capacity for YOUR life, not someone else's standard

→ The bare minimum that kept Carly going through the hardest season of her life

→ The floor/ceiling reframe and why your consistent effort doesn't disappear

→ Finding your own 'big moment' and making it enough

If you'd like Carly's support creating a life on your own terms for those big moments, get in touch here: https://carlykillen.com/home

Thanks for listening to Rooted In Presence

If you’d like to get in touch with a question about today’s episode or find out how I can support you with coaching, here’s how to reach me:
📧 Email: carlykillenpt@gmail.com
📱 Instagram: @thestrongbonescoach

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🌟 For tailored advice or personal queries, email me at carlykillenpt@gmail.com

Thank you for being here, and I look forward to supporting you on your journey to strength, health, and confidence! 💪🦴✨

Transcript

0:46

Hello and welcome back to Rooted in Presence. I'm Carly, your host, and this is episode number 128. Which really is surprising me every time I, uh, check in on where we're up to, that they do add up these episodes. Anyway, welcome back if you're a regular and a very warm welcome to you if you're joining us for the first time. So this week I want to talk about something that is coming up in my world quite a few times this week and when something shows up more than once. I tend to take that as a little nudge to explore further. And today's topic is one that is interesting to me because it sits at the center of everything I do, especially with the people I work with. And it's this. It's those small things. Those small things that are actually big things. Or more specifically, small habits actually create big moments. And I don't mean big as in world domination. I don't think that's a good thing. I'm not talking about that Instagram highlight reel kind of thing either. But I mean, big for you, big in your life, big by your own measure. I want to start by saying something that I think gets a bit lost in the health and fitness world too. Something I feel quite strongly about.'cause I'm not here to help you build a body just to impress someone else. I'm not here to get you to a size or a standard that anyone else has decided is some kind of benchmark. That's never been what my work is about. I am here for though what gets me genuinely excited every single week is helping you create the physical and mental life capacity to live the life that lights you up, to do the things that nourish you, to show up for those moments that matter to you. And the way we do that, Well, it's not through some dramatic overhaul, and it's definitely not through punishing yourself into shape. It's through small, consistent habits. Those ones that quietly do their thing in the background until one day you turn around and realize, oh wow, I can do things I couldn't do before. Things I didn't even know I was training for. So let's get started with a client story. Something that arrived in my world this week with a few of my clients. So I'm sharing this as a composite story to maintain anonymity, but also sharing with a lot of love. So some of the women I work with went to, uh, a big weekend away, a concert, a weekend out, all that, walking around a city standing for hours. Navigating a big venue over 12,000 steps done that day was usually they might struggle to do about 4,000. And when she came back and told me that her back, her body was absolutely fine. Yes, she was a bit tired, but she did it and she did it pain free. So you might be thinking, okay, Carla, that's great and but is that really a big moment? Yes, absolutely. For her, not only did she get go and have a lovely experience, she did that with her family and what she's doing is so that she can have more memories. So yes, absolutely yes, because not long ago, that absolutely wouldn't have been a given. It was actually a goal, and she's been doing that work quietly and consistently. Of course, imperfectly a life happens. She has a family. That results was a day that she could be fully present for a day she got to enjoy without her body getting in the way were able to work together. Her body supported her. And what she said to me, and I absolutely love this, is that I need to start acknowledging what I get to do as a result of those little everyday things. And I thought, yes, that's exactly that. 12,000 steps, a few blisters, but they're healing maybe a badge of honor kind of, but not because of the steps, but because of what those steps represented. A life being lived on her own terms. And I have something of that in my story too. So I'll share something a little bit more personal now because I think that makes a difference too, and I guess shows you how I also walk the walk. So I've talked before about the challenges I've navigated over the years. One quite significant was a period where my daughter spent some time in hospital keeping the details private. But I want to be honest that it was a long time emotionally draining and my world revolved around being present for her for quite some time Now. By that point, I built up some solid habits around fitness and nutrition. I had a choice. I could let it all go, which might have been understandable, completely forgivable, of course, or I could actually find another way. I decided to create a bare bones version of what I needed to do to keep going, and I chose bare bones, not as a perfect program, not tracking everything meticulously or optimizing everything, but just keeping it to the minimum viable version of looking after myself. Strength training twice a week and one meal a day with vegetables in it, because I was gonna be eating outta a lot of service stations and hotels. And I know that doesn't sound like very much, but what you need to know about me is I grew up with a lot of sensory food challenges for years, and I mean, until my thirties, I couldn't eat vegetables at all. It wasn't so much that I didn't know how, I just couldn't manage it. I couldn't face it. Those of you who are. Super tasters or neurodivergent, you might relate. So for me, a meal a day with vegetables in was not a small thing. It was a version of me that I'd worked hard to become that I'd found it difficult to step into, but I still did it and I was holding onto that even in the chaos, even though I needed to make life a little bit easier. So that bare minimum kept me going. Then when life gave me a bit of breathing space, I was able to to nourish myself a little bit better, get a few more veggies and get into the gym a little more often, as per what I enjoyed. And this allowed me to take part in activities with other people, which is something I wanted to do after having led quite an isolated life. So climbing the Yorkshire 3 Peaks. I did a total warrior ultra. I showed up for things I couldn't have done if I let go completely. So those small things allowed me to take part in some big moments, even amongst a life that wasn't looking the most fantastic at the time. And now just I'm moving forward into the present, into the now. Honestly, I'm still navigating my own recovery from burnout. My training looks. Nothing like it did at my peak. I'm taking walks, I'm using dumbbells, I'm training with a suspension trainer. You know, those ropes or those rings that you can kind of swing through from or do rows on. I enjoy using that, but I've paired my training right back and honestly, there are days when I look at what I'm doing and I just think, is this even enough? Am I even maintaining anything, even though I know the science? And then something happens that gives me an answer as I mentioned last week, I tried an aerial class. You might have, heard about that in last week's episode. And, I went back again this week and had quite a lovely time. I promise I won't make every episode about this, by the way. But yeah, a few people commented on my strength, people who didn't know my history, but they just noticed that I was kind of strong. It made me realize something. All those years of being a bit more consistent, even the paired back, reduced versions of that, even the bare bones versions, they've raised my floor. My starting point now, the place I fall back to is somewhere that my younger self, my pre-training self, could never have imagined even reaching. Even when I drop back, I don't drop back to zero. I drop back to a version of me that is still stronger than where I began. So if you've been doing little bits, if you've been working on your strength or perhaps other elements of yourself, your floor might be higher than you think. The work that you're doing doesn't disappear. Even when you need to take a step back, it can become the ground that you stand on. So what does this mean for you then? Well, I'd like to ask you something. What is your big moment? Not someone else's, not the one you think you should want. Really yours, truly yours. Maybe it's a concept. Maybe it's a walk on the beach with your grandchildren without your knees giving you grief. Maybe it's a holiday where you can actually do things. Maybe it's getting through a tough week at work and still having energy left in the tank and maybe, perhaps, maybe it's just waking up and feeling calm, grounded. Like yourself. Those are all big moments, so don't let anyone else tell you otherwise because what I'd really like you to take away from today is that you don't need to be perfect. You don't have to do it all, but if you can find yourself that bare bones version, that smallest version of looking after yourself that feels sustainable, and you can hold onto that through the hard seasons, you are doing something extraordinary and you're raising your floor. So that's what I've got for you today. Small habits, big moments, and a gentle reminder that what is big for you is truly big. Full stop. You don't need to justify it or scale it against anyone else's highlight reel. So if this episode resonated with you, I would absolutely love it if you shared it with someone who might need to hear this today. And if you're not already following along, please do. It genuinely helps more people find their way here. And if you would like to explore what your own bare bones baseline could look like, the version of you that stays with it through real life, I'd love to have that conversation with you and you can find me over. On my website stillspacehull.com or drop me a message over on Instagram where I'm at The Strong Bones Coach. So until next week, may you meet yourself with Compassion Walk with Presence, and remember you already have everything you need. Take care.