Have you ever wondered if your definition of success is creating a bar that you can’t clear? 🥴
Today’s episode is all about redefining success.
Many times, we set unrealistic goals for ourselves when it comes to our wellness habits.
In this episode, I will walk through the five things that people think success is: perfection, major results, feeling effortless, weight loss, and fun.
Then, I will discuss what success looks like and how we can view it differently.
Success is about focusing on what you have completed rather than what you have fallen short of.
I hope you enjoy this quick episode and you can see all small achievements as big successes in your ongoing wellness journey!
Have you ever wondered if your definition of success is creating a bar that you can’t clear? 🥴
Today’s episode is all about redefining success.
Many times, we set unrealistic goals for ourselves when it comes to our wellness habits.
In this episode, I will walk through the five things that people think success is: perfection, major results, feeling effortless, weight loss, and fun.
Then, I will discuss what success looks like and how we can view it differently.
Success is about focusing on what you have completed rather than what you have fallen short of.
I hope you enjoy this quick episode and you can see all small achievements as big successes in your ongoing wellness journey!
Hi and welcome to the Air we Breathe. I'm your host, heather Sears-Laman. I'm a national board certified health and wellness coach, certified intuitive eating counselor and certified personal trainer. I help you get organized and consistent with healthy habits, without rules, obsession or exhaustion. The Air we Breathe a finding wellbeing that works for you is a podcast created to help you establish a trusted foundation of doable healthy habits and smart self-care skills that can endure every season and last you a lifetime. My guests and I will share ways that you can focus on your physical and mental health with purpose, flexibility and ease. This podcast may contain talk about eating disorders and disordered eating. We minimize mentions of specific behaviors and numbers, but it's still a topic nonetheless. There also could be some squares and or adult language here. Choose wisely if those are problematic for you. Thanks for joining.
Speaker 1:
Today I'm doing a pretty quick episode, which sometimes, when I say pretty quick, it might not be, but I hope it's going to be. I want to talk about defining success today. Why is this important? I think that many times we are so hard on ourselves and we're not just trying to get to the bottom of it. We're so hard on ourselves and that inner voice, that inner jerk is the one that's driving us to work at a level that might not work for us in the long run. It's not sustainable, and that really informs what we say is quote unquote successful. I wanted to chat about this a little bit because there are multiple factors driving this and there are multiple solutions so that we don't have to feel like we're not being successful. I've said it about a million times, but success begets success. So it is really important that we are feeling like we are doing well and I certainly know many of the what will we call them Kind of the metrics of success on the interwebs or by influencers or from a book that you read are really lofty and they just don't necessarily fit a lifestyle of somebody who's busy and has responsibilities and can't dedicate every day, all day, to health and fitness. People have stuff to do. So let's look at five different things that I hear people saying and I see it in the more common conversations of what means success, and many people think perfection and, like our brains know clearly we're not going to be perfect, but another part of our brain is but you really could be if you tried hard enough and like that, perfect would be the default greatest best thing that we could do, which I certainly disagree with, but that just gets held up as the thing we are trying to do all the time Is to get as close to perfection as possible.
Speaker 1:
The second thing that I see a lot with goals is that it needs to have some major results. People certainly love quick results, and why wouldn't? We're working hard and we want something to show for it. Like, I totally get it. And many things get set up in a way that we are looking for these results to validate the work that we're doing, because then if we don't have those results, what is the point of doing any of this, which there are a lot of points to having healthy behaviors.
Speaker 1:
The results piece is so driven by diet culture because obviously, if we're doing this thing, it better make us thin, and that's certainly been a narrative that has always been around. Why else would we be doing it? And I can't count how many years I lived in that. Everything revolved around. But will it make me thin? But will it make me thin? And certainly in coaching I hear people wanting different solutions that are going to revolve around being thin as well. So the major results piece can be a big obstacle because it leads people to quit and to do some things that might not be very effective, and they also might be doing some things that can be harmful because they are in the quick fix category. So major results, that's another one gets in the way.
Speaker 1:
And this next piece I think is very interesting, but it's that it needs to feel effortless. There's some sort of magical place we're all going to get to that. It's just so easy, and I hear this a lot. I hear this especially from influencers, especially from people that I would consider completely unqualified to be giving health sustaining behavior advice period, and it goes along with this N of one theory. So basically, n of one means.
Speaker 1:
This is just my personal experience. This is an anecdote. I'm telling you about me and evidence isn't necessarily backing it up, but I'm just telling you what happened to me and you should do what I did. It's usually how it works, but there is this panacea that once we're doing the thing and we keep doing the thing, we're just not even going to have to think about it at all. Like when I hear people like that stop eating sugar. I just don't even want it anymore. It just doesn't even sound good. I don't crave it, it's great. Could it be you? I hope that is working for you. Yeah, I find a platform right here.
Speaker 1:
This sort of exhaustion, when people are having to put effort towards their behaviors, that they are like this isn't what it should be. This should be easy. I don't want to think about it, I just want to do it and then I'm done and it was so easy. And I'm not saying that your health-sustaining behaviors should feel like pulling teeth, because they shouldn't. Some things are easier than others and that just varies completely by personality and preference and what you enjoy and what you don't enjoy. So I like to look at this effortless piece certainly as a story, and I don't know who started the story, but it definitely lives in the areas, especially like an MLM or something, where they're really selling something that, oh my gosh, like things are so easy. Now I can talk more about that.
Speaker 1:
But and the next one is weight loss that success is if I am losing weight, and this is certainly held up by diet culture, and this is held up by weight loss companies who more or less inform our cultural perceptions of reality around weight in our bodies. So a company. We'll just go ahead and start on Weight Watchers that it has been a scale-based program forever. And there are other companies. I worked for a company and managed a wellness vendor and they sent a scale to everybody that signed up and I didn't know that beforehand and I was like, wait, what? Yeah, you get a scale and it's Bluetooth. So every time you get on the scale, like your coach will know, like, how your weight's doing. And I was just absolutely mortified and also asked a lot of questions is this what we're doing? And the company was like what other metric would you have to define success? I'll name 10 off the top of my head, but weight loss doesn't necessarily have to be one of them. Is that a side effect at times of having healthier behaviors? Yes, certainly, some people absolutely do lose weight and they can have a weight loss with behaviors that actually stays off. So these things are absolutely possible. But when we start doing things with the intention of losing weight, it makes it much, much harder to keep going if we are not, because again nothing's happening. So what's the point of this? And the last one is fun, but this has been really fun again.
Speaker 1:
I definitely see this more kind of like in the MLM community of. It always reminds me of Beachbody, because now we've got people who are wholly unqualified to be telling us what to do in the fitness realm People who love fitness, which is great, and they are focused on trying to make a profit, which 97% of them are not. Have you ever felt like the do-it-yourself approach to improving your healthy habits ends up doing nothing except making you feel overwhelmed, guilty and defeated? Have you been struggling to find sustainable routines that work for your responsibilities, lifestyle, budget and personal preferences? You don't need more rules, influencers or structured programs. Let me help you discover what you want, what works for you and how to maintain healthy habits during the ever-changing circumstances of your life. If you're ready to create systems that stick, head to heathersayerslaymancom, backslash health dash coaching and click let's do it. Anyway, but they really do the like. Oh my gosh, this workout is so fun, and I see it in the recipe realm, too, where people that are eating like a twigs and cardboard, but there's cottage cheese mixed in. So that's pretty good that this is really fun and I'm really excited about it. Can you be excited about cottage cheese? Yes, I just talked to somebody who really likes cottage cheese.
Speaker 1:
I get it, but I don't look at all of the healthy habits as necessarily fun and I hear this especially in the anti-diet community about movement, because I just say meaningful movement, because when I'm doing things it means something to me. It means my back won't be as stiff, it means I'll probably have more energy, I'll probably sleep better, so that is meaningful to me. But a lot of people say, like joyful movement, and for me that's just a stretch, that is. That's just not how I think about it, and some people may work out and feel joy. Again, kudos to them. I don't think that it means you're not being successful if you don't think it's fun. I don't think you should show up in tears, I don't think it should be awful, but I definitely. When I look at my time at the gym, it's cool because I have friends there. My husband and I work out together a couple of days a week. It's fun like that, but I don't think it's fun. So anyway, those are the five ways that I think really get in the way of people continuing health, sustaining behaviors, because they're waiting for those things to happen and when some of those things don't happen, it's not working, there's no point and I'm going to quit doing it. So what success actually looks like to me? So this, for me, is redefining sustainable success Because, again, with these habits, my goal, as always, is to have people still doing them.
Speaker 1:
I want people to pick up habits that they can do for a long time, not something that they can grin and bear it for 30 days, but that these are long haul habits. So, focusing on problem solving, and I feel like at times there are facets of our lives that are just ever changing. That is just the way that it is and that is how it will always be. It would be, I don't know, easier if our life was just this sort of static thing and then you know what to expect and then you can do your things. And certainly there are times in our lives where we have more control over our time and more flexibility, and sometimes we do not.
Speaker 1:
That's where problem solving comes in, so we may have this obstacle that comes up, and then it's easy to throw up our hands and be like I guess I'm not going to the gym anymore and I certainly see this with myself a lot because my back's going to go out, may not be feeling well. A lot of different things can happen. I'll just go with my back, because that is my current issue, but there are a lot of things that I can do at the gym, which one is like back exercises and flexibility, so that I'm actually working on making my back better, but also there's still upper body exercise I can do, or the core exercises I can do, but in my mode of problem solving, I'm trying to figure out what I can do. This also can go for schedules of. Maybe that family has a lot of commitments and it's really eating into the time that you have for your habits. What can I do then? Can I offload some of this responsibility? Do I just need to cut back on my habits, because I know it's for this amount of time? But always looking to be a problem solver because, again, I think in the everyday overwhelm of our lives, it's easy to just throw up our hands and say you know what, I just can't even deal with it. I don't want to deal with it, I don't want to work on it. But what is it I can do, and it might just be a fraction of what you're doing before, which is completely fine, but you have checked in with yourself to decide what's going to work at this time.
Speaker 1:
The second thing that you can absolutely do is meeting a percentage of a goal. Personally, I'm not a big goal setter. Some people dig it, some people really like it, and they might be doing something like a race. I want to do a couch to 5K and I want to do it in this period of time. Something might come up again Maybe I've sprained my ankle, or maybe my asthma is really bad. Or soccer season Now we're going into finals, so this is taking a lot longer. I thought we'd be done by now, so maybe I don't actually get to do my 5K race. And then maybe this couch to 5K program I spread out even more and take it slow. But I'm still working on the things and I'm still moving forward and I'm still either walking or jogging what I said I wanted to do.
Speaker 1:
And it could be something like where you've decided that you want to make your lunches more often and then you said, okay, five days a week, absolutely, I'm gonna bring my lunch to work and life happens and just got in the way and you're doing three days a week, which is great. So meeting a percentage of that goal is still a success, and I definitely see the disappointment that some people have of like, oh, I only did it three days, but you did it three days. So we have to again address that inner jerk voice to say, no, I get credit for this, I'm getting credit. So, finding a lower intensity level. So maybe we have gotten a little optimistic with starting out and it could be that we have decided that we've read the artist's way and we're gonna do our morning pages where we're journaling I think it's three pages and at some point you're like I can't do this. Either I don't have this much to say or I don't have this much time, or I feel more stressed trying to get these three pages. But then your intensity level is like, okay, I'm just gonna knock it down to one page.
Speaker 1:
And this also goes for, obviously, like exercise, where you are saying like, okay, I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna do this at this level. I wanna make sure on the elliptical, I'm always reaching this number, or you're following your heart rate and it needs to be at this number. It can be lower, it doesn't have to reach that to make it a success. And again, I think looking at what you are doing versus what you're not doing is really helpful here, so pivoting to a different goal. Sometimes we definitely need to punt and we may have said to ourselves like, okay, I'm going to go into the gym and I'm going to do these back exercises, I'm gonna do this four days a week and, for whatever reason, I just can't get to the gym or my back is hurting too much trying to do these exercises and I just need to find a pool and get into the pool and do some aquatic therapy to de-weight my back. Overall, I'm still working on my back, but I'm having to find a totally different way to do it.
Speaker 1:
And again, if I'm talking about bringing my lunch to work, maybe that I just say you know what? I'm going to try a meal delivery service. Or I'm gonna work with my pal at work and we're gonna switch off back and forth and see if, when I bring lunch, I bring two lunches and then the next day she'll bring two lunches and we do it like that. So we really can find different goals and make sure that we're not beating ourselves up about it. Because, also, it might be that you've decided I really want to bring more, bring my homemade lunches to work, but then calamity strikes and something's happening at home and you're like you know what? The best thing I could do for myself is to try to do deep breathing a couple times a day. That's it. That's all I've got. I've got it. I'm just gonna dump this lunch goal for now and then work on my stress and making sure that I'm taking care of myself emotionally.
Speaker 1:
So pivoting. There's nothing wrong with it, and sometimes we have different bandwidth abilities and it is good to recognize that and appreciate that. Maybe this isn't it right now Trying something new. I think many times we try what we have done for a long time. We try things that worked like, oh, when I was in college, I did this and well, heather, you're not in college, so I don't think that's going to work.
Speaker 1:
But doing something completely new, I think can be exciting. It can be a little bit nerve-wracking, but I feel like there are times where you try things and you try them over and over and it just doesn't work. It's just not working for you and instead of beating yourself up, is there something new that I can try? I think that all of these pieces do require contemplation and some self-awareness and critical thinking, which are all bandwidth pieces which can be hard to come by at different times. So I totally get that.
Speaker 1:
I absolutely think if you are having a hard time or you feel like you're just not measuring up, can I look at problem solving, meeting a percentage of the goal, finding a lower intensity level, pivoting to a different goal or just trying something new. What does that feel like? What does that look like for me? Because, especially if you're finding yourself in a place where you're beating yourself up for not doing enough, not doing it right, how can I redefine what sustainable success means to me? All these details are in the show notes and, of course, journaling is an excellent thing to do when you are trying to work on these and trying to come up with solutions.
Speaker 1:
So you can always find my journaling guide at heathersearslaymancom backslashjournal. That's in the show notes as well. I hope this helps, because I really want you to think positively about yourself and give yourself kudos and really practice being that friend to yourself that we all wish we had. Alright, we'll see you next time. Thanks so much for listening today. Do you know what would be really fun If you popped over to my Instagram at heathersearslaymancom and dropped me a DM and let me know what topics you want me to cover Something bugging you, something holding you up. Please just let me know and I will tweak some content and get an episode out just for you. As always, please follow the show or you can leave a five star review on Apple or Spotify. That would be fun too. See you in the next episode.
