How to EVOLVE Your Relationship With Your Body & Self
Throughout our lives we go through many changes - some that instantly adjust the direction of our lives and others that happen gradually over time. These unexpected changes often shape us, but you don’t have to rely on chance to evolve your life.
As we all know, the most important relationship you will ever have is the one you have with yourself. This is why it’s important to give yourself the same time and effort to grow and evolve that you give to others.
Intentionally working on yourself is a lifelong investment and what may feel scary and foreign at first will eventually become a non-negotiable over time. So, if you’re ready to unlock that next next level of self love and understanding, check out our tips below to help you navigate becoming your healthiest and happiest self.
Gratitude
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, gratitude is a really powerful tool to get you to zoom out and view your life through a more positive lense. Chances are, we all have something we can be grateful for every day and actively shining a light on this helps to bring it into your conscious thoughts training your brain to look for MORE positives throughout the day. Now, it doesn’t always have to be physical things or people that we are grateful for, this may be something as simple as the smell of your morning coffee or that the sun is shining! We would encourage everyone to try and take a moment to show gratitude every day, no matter how long or short the list may be, and your ability to recognise these will improve over time. Why not try this using the Daily Goal Setting in the MWU App? You’ll be surprised at the difference it can make.
TIP: If you are struggling with a particular area in your life, try to find something you are grateful for there first. For example, if you are having negative thoughts about your body you may take a moment to be grateful that you have legs that allow you to move from place to place and a heart that beats for you without you even having to think about it! Pretty cool, huh?
Living in line with your values
Whether they are clear to us or not, most of us have an ingrained set of values which guide our actions and decisions. These are often passed down from our parents in childhood, or developed through our life experiences. Values differ from goals in that they are more about the way you choose to live your life and your underlying beliefs, rather than the destination. People who live in line with their values tend to feel more happiness and contentment than those who don’t, so they’re pretty important for building a happy and fulfilling life!
But the first step? Knowing your values! Take some time to sit down and think about what a successful life means and looks like to you. Some examples may be showing integrity, adventure, happiness, having a family focus or continuous growth.
Now, you might be thinking: how does this relate to my relationship with myself? Well, setting life and fitness goals that are guided by our values are a lot more likely to be achieved and sustained, and this is really important for building trust and commitment with ourselves. For example, if one of your values is a strong, connected family and you are choosing to always eat a separate meal instead of a meal with them, it’s likely that you won’t adhere to this for very long. You may even end up feeling resentment towards yourself and your choices.
Instead, think about how your goals can be achieved in line with your values. This might look like incorporating your family meal into your calories and macros, or maybe for you, tracking your dinner meal tightly is not suitable and taking a more balanced ‘healthy plate’ approach may better serve you. Whatever your goals are, make sure you consider whether they are in line with your personal values before going in 100%.
Acknowledge your wins
It’s often easier for humans to spend time thinking about things that have gone wrong rather than acknowledging all of the wins across the day, week or month. Just like showing gratitude, acknowledging your wins will help to bring more positivity in and train your brain to look for the positives more often. It’s a snowball effect!
Have you ever wanted to buy a car and noticed that exact car on the road more than ever before? This is because we attract what we think about, so why not make it something positive!
Train your mind, not just your body
Our minds are such a powerful tool we often neglect when beginning a health & fitness journey. Our mind controls our actions and emotions, so spending time training yourself to think in a way that benefits you will have a magnitude of flow on effects in your health & fitness and day to day life.
Activities like journaling, meditation or learning a new skill can all help you to learn yourself on a deeper level. Journaling may help you to recognise your patterns (good and bad), meditation can help to achieve a quieter and more focused mind and learning new skills can improve your self-efficacy and confidence. We recommend picking one of these activities to start with and implementing it daily for at least 2-3 weeks to see how it works for you.
Training your mind can also help you to improve a poor body image. When we start to only have physique-based goals this can be detrimental to our mental health as it can skew our perspective. Like we mentioned earlier - we attract more of what we think about! Spending all of your time focusing on your physical body can over-emphasise this aspect of your life and reduce how much energy we spend on other areas. Living in a healthy body is always a fantastic goal to have, but attaching your value to something as ever-changing as your body can be problematic in the long run.
So, how do we manage this? Balance. Ensuring you have some non physique-based goals, and even non-fitness related goals to be working towards can really help to keep things in perspective and ensure you are not tying all of your happiness to one aspect of life. Remember, your body is the vessel that allows you to move through life, it deserves love and appreciation at all stages.
In conclusion
Incorporating the above tips into your daily routine can make the world of difference when it comes to improving your relationship with your body and self, and can help you guide yourself into the woman you want to be. We are all human and this means none of us are perfect, but dedicating time to working on yourself will help you to continually evolve into your best self - because you deserve it.
