How do I make health a priority (and actually stick to personal health goals)? My 3 step process to achieving health goals

Your health is something you should always prioritize, especially nowadays. Are you ready to make that change in your life? Are you ready to finally make your health a priority this year? If yes, then I have the right tips just for you! 

Remember that establishing the habit of making your health a priority could be hard at first but once you have it in your routine, you’ll be able to embrace it better. The key in making this happen is to decide whether you’re ready to do this or not. It’s a commitment that you have to make with yourself. 

In this episode, I’m sharing the steps for you to follow once you’ve decided that your health is as important as the other things in your life. Discipline and sacrifice are the two important aspects of making our health a priority, it won’t be easy but it will be worth in the end. 

If you’re ready to make a change in your life towards something that will benefit you in the long run, then tune in and listen to this insightful episode!

Let’s do this, friend!

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Hi Friends, Welcome to the Fit Christian woman podcast where we make health and fitness fun, inspirational and transformative from the inside out. I’m your host, Kelsey Bryant. 

I’m a wife, mom, daughter of the king and a clinical exercise physiologist. I’m here to help you finally find a fitness plan that works for you and glorifies Jesus. So fill up your water jug, put on your yoga pants, it’s time to get fit. 

Hey, ladies, thanks for tuning in.

Today we are going to talk about how to make health a priority. 

A lot of ladies always asked how to continue, or how to schedule time, or how to make it all work and I’m going to bring you some tips today on how to do that. So if you’ve been tuning into the series, we established in the last episode that health is not an all or nothing mindset and you can really do something every day to improve your health and start taking the right steps on your health journey and that we’ve already been on our health journey and it’s time to make sure we’re paying attention and really tuning in to doing things that serve us. 

We learned that celebrating the small victories is a huge motivator. That is a great way to really be encouraged, continue to feel empowered, and to continue to take the right steps in that direction of health for you. 

Stephen R. Covey said it best when he said the key is:

Not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.

So let’s grab out our planners, clear off our schedule and make health a priority. 

I understand you’re busy.  You’re a busy mom, you’re busy taking care of a lot of things, a lot of people, maybe you work as well. We’re always working right and maybe you feel like you just can’t add one more priority to your list. 

Well, it’s time to cross off something and add health in its place, and let me tell you why this doesn’t have to be a forever switch, because, and we’ll move through this a little bit later but if you take the time to really establish these habits, now, they won’t need so much effort later, and they’ll become our autopilot. So they’ll become your autopilot but we have to take time to make health a priority as we’re learning how to be the healthiest us. 

You may have to say no to things that are on your schedule, you may have to give yourself a break in time, you may have to wake up a little bit earlier and you may have to switch a few things around to make health a priority for this season. 

If you’re serious about it, honor yourself, honor the time that it’ll take and add it into your schedule.

If it’s time to focus on your health, make it a priority. 

Once you’ve put in all this effort and learn these things, they will benefit you and they will start to become your norm where you’re just automatically doing them and you will then have time to add things back into your schedule or maybe those things never served you in the first place. 

Now you’re encouraged and strong enough mentally and emotionally to let those things go and you feel empowered to know what is best for you so take the time to decide right now, what health is going to be and how health will be a priority in your schedule. 

Okay, now that you’ve prioritized it and put it in your schedule, it’s time to plan it because we can’t just say it’s there and just leave it right we have to start putting some steps into how we are going to make this work for us. 

Plan your healthy steps. 

What you want to do is take the time to decide what is most important, what is one change that you can do that will benefit you greatly. What is one area? Let me give exercises as an example. If you choose to schedule health and you choose that it’s going to be exercise, this is a really good one because it benefits many areas of your life. 

Research has shown us that exercise benefits us besides physically and maybe losing some weight. It helps control blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes, it also improves our mood, our sleep, it helps us mentally, physically and emotionally, so prioritizing exercise as one of your health priorities is a really good place to start. 

Another example is you could prioritize something that will benefit you greatly as well so maybe you’re going to prioritize, going to bed an hour early, or turning off your phone or TV an hour before your bedtime so you get a more restful sleep, these things are intentional, they’re a priority, and they’re very achievable and I want you to take the time to think about one to two things, no more than two ladies, I know we want to change fully. 

I know we want that full transformation but these things take time. And I want you to master one to two changes first, before we make another switch and I do this because it’s so important. 

I do this with all my clients, because we need to kind of see the victory, or we need to start making this change and feeling better. And being encouraged that, hey, I do have the time to prioritize health. 

Hey, I do have the willpower and the strength to go into making these changes that are within my control. I do love myself enough that this can be important to me. And I do value myself enough that I’m going to clear out my schedule.  I’m going to take some time away from some other things, so I can be the healthiest me. These things are really important. And just changing one to two or taking time to establish one to do will give you the momentum to then continue on. And before you know it – by a few months down the road, you’ve already made three or four healthy changes that are really setting you up for success. 

Right now, think of just one or two things that you can change easily, that will help you get momentum. Picking things that benefit more than just one area of life is really important. So if you’ve gone from being encouraged and scheduling, making health a priority, now you’ve made a plan, you decided exactly what the few things are that you’re going to do. 

Next, we’ll move into how to stay committed. The Bible says in Galatians 6:9, “Let us not become weary in doing good for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” 

That will be encouragement for you so making these changes, let this help you stay committed, you’re making these changes, you’ve decided that you’re only going to make one to change, you’ve got your plan and now how are you going to stay committed, you’re going to stay committed because you know that you’re going to reap the harvest so you don’t want to give up, I want you to think about the end product. 

Once these new plans are accomplished and once they become a habit and become easier for you. What will that look like? What will that feel like? What will that do for you? How will you be healthier? How will you have a stronger capacity to continue on with some of your other duties or be empowered to make other changes. 

Staying committed is usually very difficult but if we tap into our Scripture and we tap into the power of the Lord, we will have the confidence to stay committed. 

Another way to stay committed is celebrating those small victories like we’ve discussed. Celebrating all the wins will help you stay committed because you’ll be seeing and feeling the benefits and also limiting distractions. 

If you know that going to the gym first thing in the morning is how you’re going to achieve your exercise,  make sure that there are no distractions in the morning. Make sure the coffee pot is set. Don’t check your email, if you know that that will start you into work mode and that you will prioritize that over going to the gym. Don’t check your social media, if you know that that’s gonna deflate you and make you not feel encouraged to go to the gym – so make sure you are limiting your distraction. 

Make sure the kids have their breakfast prepared or everything’s going to be ready. When you get home, you’ll have your food, your ability to shower and get out the house. So make sure you limit distractions that will also help you stay committed. 

The final way to make health a priority is to really thrive on autopilot.

If you’ve done these steps that I’ve listed before, you’re encouraged you’ve scheduled it. You’ve scheduled health as a priority.  You’ve written it in your planner, you’ve made a plan you’ve learned and mastered how to stay committed to it. So what you’ve really done is help establish this as a habit, and now you’re going to thrive on autopilot because you’ve already made this a priority. 

You’ve done it, you’ve achieved it, it’s become natural, you’ve made sure you exercise in the morning, three days a week, or you go to bed an hour early. And those things are now a part of you, you’ve done them long enough, you feel confident, and then you’re not distracted by anything. Those things are set in stone, that is how that is now part of your life, then you just kind of thrive on autopilot, you know that your bedtime is now whatever time that is, if it was nine o’clock, now it’s eight o’clock. If it was midnight, now it’s 11. You’re confident in that, because you’ve established it as a habit. 

So now you’re going to thrive on autopilot, and you know what it’s time to do next, ladies, it’s time to pick another health goal and make another priority, make something else be where you spend your time and effort so you can continue on your health journey. 

You pick a new goal, you pick a new habit to change, you pick a new way to be healthier, you decide what to do, and you kind of just rinse and repeat so you’re already encouraged because you’ve established this rock star, healthy habit. 

So then you go back in, you make your plan, you stay committed, and then you’ll thrive on autopilot for your next one. And that’s how you’re going to continue down your month in your weeks for the rest of the year. 

So you can really get these habits ingrained. 

So there’s your plan that’s how you make health a priority. 

You find the encouragement, you take time to schedule it, you make the plan on how you’re going to achieve it, you only pick one to two things to change because we don’t want to be overwhelmed. 

We don’t want to pick too many things and be discouraged.  If we can achieve them all and you stay committed and then you thrive. You just drive on autopilot. It’s awesome. It can be that simple. 

You have to put the work in, you have to do it. Scheduling the time and staying committed are the hardest. But once you get to that thrive on autopilot, you’ll see the benefits of it and you’ll just continue on and it will give you so much momentum to grab the next health goal, that next priority that you want. And that is really how you’re going to set yourself up for success.

 Alright ladies, I hope you’ve enjoyed this mindset series, and stay tuned for the next one.