9 to 5 Wellness
Do you have the knowledge you need to help your organization get the best return on the time and capital invested in employee wellbeing? Are you a busy professional or C-suite leader looking to introduce wellbeing program at your work?
Discover the art and science of helping organizations grow their most important resource, their people. In this podcast we discuss how organizations can utilize the potential of wellbeing programs to deliver high return on investment (ROI) to employers. We talk about the radical impact that holistic employee wellbeing programs can have on overall quality of work and productivity. We will be sharing insights on investing in human capital. Such as:
🌟 What has helped their organizations gain a competitive advantage?
🌟 How they see the future of employee wellbeing?
🌟 Misunderstandings that are out in the corporate market today
🌟 Advice to other leaders to create a happier, healthier, and more productive workplace
Our guests are C-suite leaders, and wellness innovators across the value chain: HR managers, wellness champions, community wellbeing ambassadors, service vendors, and wellness consultants.
9 to 5 Wellness
Consistency for Sustainable Wellbeing
When it comes to creating a sustainable, healthy lifestyle consistency is key. It’s the actions you take MOST of the time that creates lasting results. But you probably know this, right?
So, what’s holding you back? What’s creating friction?
Learn in todays episode how perfectionism and focusing on outcomes keeps us behind.
#consistency #lovetheprocess #learn #grow #habits #consistencyforhealth #consistencyforwellbeing #wellness #9to5wellness
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🌟 🌟 🌟 If you liked this episode and would like to learn more about wellness training and workshops offered by 9 to 5 Wellness, email us at info@aeshathair.com. You can learn more about our programs at: https://toneandstrengthen.com/workshops-trainings/. 🌟 🌟 🌟
Aesha Tahir is an award-winning author, keynote speaker, corporate trainer, and columnist. She delivers high-energy presentations that challenge audiences to leverage their focus to what matters most at work and in life, their health. Audiences love the practical strategies she shares. She helps the organizations create a culture of wellness by implementing health programs that put organizations’ biggest asset, the employees first.
Aesha earned her Master in Exercise Science from Concordia University. She is a distinguished Toastmasters, a designation held by less than 1% of professional speakers. She engages groups from the moment she steps in front of them and leaves them with empowering tools that they can use for the rest of their lives. She has presented workshops and spoken at organizations such as Salesforce, Coffman Engineers, Pyramid Club, Voyager Media Group, National Libraries, 92NY, and Coaching4Leaders to name a few.
🌟 🌟 🌟 You can learn more about Aesha Tahir at https://www.aeshatahir.com
🌟 🌟 🌟 If you liked this episode and would like to learn more about wellness training and workshops offered by 9 to 5 Wellness, email us at info@aeshathair.com. You can learn more about our programs at: https://toneandstrengthen.com/workshops-trainings/. 🌟 🌟 🌟
My passion is helping organizations create a culture of wellness, and I do this by setting up health programs that prioritize the most important asset they've got – their employees. Cheers to a healthier and happier journey ahead!
🌟 🌟 🌟 You can learn more about ME- the host at https://www.aeshatahir.com
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Welcome to the nine to five wellness podcast, a show about corporate wellness solutions with innovators and forward thinking leaders who are at the forefront of the workplace wellness movement. I'm your host Ayesha Tahir.
Hello, and welcome to today's episode of 9 to 5 Wellness Show.
Today on the show I want to talk about consistency and its relationship to well being because in my experience the only secret to healthy lifestyle is consistency. Last week I met up with my friend Amy after a while. We hadn't seen each other in six months. and my conversation with her inspired the last podcast episode on skipping meals for weight loss.
If you haven't listened to that episode, go ahead and cue it so that you can listen to it after this episode. I've known Amy for 12 years now. And I met her for the very first time at a mom's group, when my youngest son was only four weeks old. And I had lost all the baby weight at that time. Our very first conversation had started on the topic of weight loss. I wasn't working as a nutritionist at that time. So it's funny that at our coffee meetup last week, the conversation turned out to be very similar to our very first conversation. Amy's just a friend who I've gently advised, on weight loss here and there, and she is a little overweight and she has struggled with weight issues for as long as I've known her.
One of her comments that is the inspiration for today's episode was that Aisha, no matter what I do, I'll never be thin like you. And I know that she meant it in the bestest of ways. She's my friend. It was a very generous compliment from her. My intention is not to brag here, but I want to share this with you because I want you to know that this option is available to you as well. I replied to her that, yeah, because at the end of your weight loss process, you will be much stronger and better looking than me. Thank you.
Her comment made me realize that I'm probably not as open as I should be about my own well being journey and process, which is one of the reasons I create content in form of podcasts, blogs, and social media posts, because I want to inspire and motivate others to adopt a healthy lifestyle and become better people.
versions of themselves. So I felt like, I'm not open about it. I'm beating the purpose. So here. is my journey. Here is what it has looked like for me. When I look back at my life, my health throughout the years, I have to say the biggest contributor to my healthy weight is consistency.
Honestly, I like boring stuff. I like pure repetition. I like routine. I like showing up every day. I like the discipline that comes with consistency. Consistency has in turn allowed me to create systems which have then allowed me to keep a healthy weight. But not only the weight, Also, it has allowed me to start up my business.
It has allowed me to write and publish my book in 2023. It has allowed me to contribute articles to over 10 health and wellness magazines. The progress hasn't always been linear. I've made many mistakes in the process and I have fallen down many times, but consistency has helped me get up again and again.
So if I was to pin just one thing that has helped me in achieving my health goals and my life goals, it's consistency. The biggest pain point from my clients is their lack of consistency. And they feel that it's hard to be consistent. And I've noticed the most common blocker to consistency is perfectionism.
Perfectionism creates friction. I've noticed that my clients get fixated on making things perfect. I was having a conversation with a client just Last week about logging in enough sleep and how he was struggling to shut down his laptop on time because he responded to emails after dinner and before he knows it, it's past nine o'clock.
So he wanted to create a new system, some new productivity method that he could apply so he could be more on top of his email correspondence during the day so he could sleep on time.
When we dived into his email responding process, he realized that the problem was that he was so worried about details of the emails that he was sending out and he ended up spending too much time crafting responses that the work was spilling into the evening and leading into late nights.
And my friends, no new app and task management practice is going to help you with perfectionism. Perfectionism creates friction. The more you try and make something perfect, the more willpower you're going to need to just keep going. And consistency and habit are created when there is least amount of friction, when things are in a steady state.
Seth Godin, one of the most prolific marketers and authors in my opinion of today, says, show me all of your bad writing. Anyone can publish a book and write blogs, but a lot of us just spend way too much time focusing on the tiniest little details. So, I want to ask you, I want to ask you to show me your bad workout.
Show me your bad run. Show me your bad home cooked meal. Show me your shortest walk. You fill in the blank, whatever you think you're not doing good enough in your health journey.
Consistency is a mindset. And it's that mindset that leads to new habits. It means showing up regularly and reliably towards accomplishing your goals while accepting imperfection. When you decide to be consistent rather than perfect, you're being realistic and kind to yourself. Choosing consistency is self love.
When you're kind to yourself, you are better able to reach your goals. When you get over perfection, you can show up for yourself in a way that is possible each day, which means taking small enough steps that will bring you closer to your goal. and recognizing that some days you will accomplish more than others and some days you will accomplish less.
What does that look like for you? Maybe it is aiming for a 30 to 40 minute workout every day, but knowing fully well that you will need to skip a day here and there. Maybe it is recognizing that movement snacks during the workday are also progress. Maybe it is recognizing that striving to eat healthy on most days is good enough.
Enjoying food while socializing is okay. Aiming for consistent sleep schedule most days, but also leaving room for a late night can also be another one for you.
The second biggest obstacle to consistency, in my own experience, is focusing too much on the outcome rather than the process. I'm not saying that outcome is not important.
Of course it is. You want results. But if we become fixated on outcome, it works against us. Because any health goal, Or any kind of goal, maybe it's a relationship goal, maybe it's a career goal you have, is going to take work over a period of time. Results take time, and often they take a lot of time, my friends.
However, we are living in an age of instant gratification. The drive to get results faster has just sped up to an almost breakneck pace. You want results like yesterday, right? A lot of my clients would come to me and they want to lose like 20 pounds in one month. Well, that's a big audacious goal.
Now you see how it leads to unrealistic goals to begin with, which undoubtedly leads to failure it's because you're not seeing the rewards immediately, so you will lose the motivation to carry on. When I started running, like many moons ago, I used to get discouraged if my pace was too slow, and the next day I used to get better.
struggle to go out for a run, but I tried to stay up with it, no matter how slow the pace was, how bad the run was. And now after so many years of consistent running, it's part of my daily life. And not only that, but I've also been able to see very good progress. So I want you to focus on the process.
Focus on what's in front of you. Focus on your next meal. Focus on your next workout. Focus on next good night's sleep. I don't want you to dismiss new ideas and opportunities too early without any results.
A lot of times I hear from my clients, I've tried that approach. I've tried increasing my protein intake. I've tried working out most days of the week. And my question to my clients always is, but have you tried it long enough?
I want to give you an example from my life. I used to crave a lot of sweets and desserts, but I don't anymore. With consistent healthy habits and healthy choices for food, it's The part of the brain that controls cravings for me has calmed down.
So that part of the brain is the horseshoe shaped hippocampus. It's located in our temporal lobe, and it's responsible for making short and long term memories and plays a significant role in reward seeking behavior. It's that part of the brain that craves instant gratification and sugar and sitting on the couch and watching TV.
And over time, I have realized that with consistency, The part of that brain has calmed down for me, and it will calm down for you too if you stay consistent with your lifestyle changes.
Becoming fixated on outcomes takes the focus away from here and now. You start thinking of all the time and effort that will go into this.
Anytime I've kept my focus on the destination, I've I've tripped and fallen. It's when I've focused on what's right in front of me and let go of the outcome that the most momentous events have happened in my life and the outcomes I've achieved have far outweighed what I've dreamed of. My friends, consistency is easy. We are biologically wired for consistency. How do I know that? Well, how often do you touch your cell phone screen? Quite consistently, right? And how often do you scroll through social media? Again, consistently, right? We are creatures of habits.
You probably have the same friends you had a decade ago. You have been going consistently to work. If you're a student, you've been attending school consistently. 40 percent of your life is consistent and it runs on auto habits. So examine your life. You already have plenty of habits. Pick a few you like.
Maybe You exercise regularly, maybe you meditate, maybe you clean your room or house. That shows that you can create good habits. Difficulty level aside, you're able to develop habits. Time will pass anyways. Your habits will let you leverage time to your advantage. And building healthy habits starts here and now, not in the distant future. Change and success. Both come from compounding daily efforts. I love this quote from Laozi, the journey of a thousand miles starts with one step.
So be consistent, be present. Expect hardships and do the work. Take your help, your relationships, your career to the next level. Yes, you can do it by building small consistent habits and enjoying the ride on your way there. It was so nice chatting with you today. If you liked today's episode, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts. I can't wait to talk to you next week.
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