What Does It Really Take to Change?
By Sheryl Davis, NBC-HWC
You've told yourself you're going to start taking better care of your health. Maybe that means getting more exercise, eating differently, managing stress, or finally making time for the things that help you feel good.
You have good intentions. You might even have a plan. And for a while, things go pretty well.
Then work gets busy. Someone in your family needs something. You're exhausted by the end of the day. The routine you were building starts slipping, and before long, you're right back where you started. It's frustrating, especially when you already know what you want to do. So why does it keep happening?
Knowing What to Do Is One Thing. Following Through Is Another.
We're surrounded by information about how to improve our health. We know physical activity matters. We know sleep matters. We know that what we eat, how we manage stress, and the choices we make each day influence our well-being.
But information alone doesn't create change.
Think about how many things you do automatically throughout the day. The way you start your morning. What you reach for when you're stressed. How you spend the little bit of free time you have.
These patterns develop for reasons. They may provide comfort, save time, reduce stress, or simply be familiar.
Even when a pattern no longer serves us, changing it can require more than deciding to do something different.
Your Health Has to Compete with Everything Else
Most of us aren't making decisions about our health in isolation. We're making them in the middle of work deadlines, family responsibilities, financial concerns, and all the ordinary demands of daily life.
You might spend the entire day making sure everyone else has what they need, only to realize at the end of it that you haven't given much thought to what you need. And even when you do make time for yourself, it's often in the form of a running list of things you think you should be doing. Get more exercise. Eat better. Go to bed earlier. Manage your stress.
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efore long, taking care of your health starts to feel like another obligation. Another thing you're supposed to be getting right. So, you tell yourself you'll focus on it when things settle down. But what happens when they don't? What if the answer isn't finding more time, making a better plan, or becoming more disciplined?
What If You Need to Ask Better Questions?
When we struggle to follow through on something important to us, it's easy to conclude that we need more discipline. But there's often more to the story. Instead of asking, "Why can't I just make myself do this?" we might ask:
What do I really want to be different, and why does it matter to me?
What tends to happen when I try to make a change?
How might my current habits or patterns be serving me, even if they're no longer helping me get where I want to go?
What might I need to do differently this time?
These questions invite us to understand ourselves rather than judge ourselves. And that understanding can be powerful. When we begin to recognize what's driving our choices, what matters to us, and what keeps pulling us back into familiar patterns, we have more opportunities to choose differently.
Moving Beyond Starting Over
When we begin to understand ourselves better, we create opportunities to make different choices. We might recognize that the routine we've been trying to follow doesn't actually support what matters most to us. Or that a habit we've been trying to break has been meeting a need we haven't figured out how to meet another way. We might realize that some of the expectations we're trying to live up to aren't even our own.
And with that awareness comes the opportunity to experiment. To question old assumptions, try something different, and discover what helps us move toward the health and life we want. It doesn't mean we'll never encounter challenges or fall back into familiar patterns. But instead of seeing those moments as failures or reasons to start over, we can learn from them. That's how we begin to move beyond repeating the same cycle and start creating meaningful, lasting change.
What Would You Change If You Had the Right Support?
Quit smoking? Lose weight? Become more active? Improve your eating habits? Take steps to manage a health condition? Or make some other change entirely?
What would you like to be different about your health a year from now?
Whatever your goals, you get to decide what matters most and where you want to begin.
As a National Board Certified Health & Wellness Coach, I partner with clients to get clear about what they want for their health, understand the patterns that have been holding them back, and begin creating meaningful change.
Right now, I'm looking for five people who are ready to move beyond the cycle of starting over and explore what becomes possible with personalized coaching and support.
I'm offering my three-month, one-on-one coaching program, Intentionally Well: Foundations, at a special $697 case-study rate (regularly $1,497).
If you're curious about what you could change with the right support, you can learn more about the program and schedule a free 20-minute conversation.
About the author
Sheryl Davis is a National Board Certified Health & Wellness Coach (NBC-HWC) and founder of Wellness in a Chaotic World, based in the Cazenovia area. She helps people who want to take better care of themselves but struggle to make it happen amid life's competing demands. Through compassionate, collaborative coaching, she partners with clients to turn good intentions into meaningful, sustainable changes that support their health and the lives they want to be living.
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