I’ve moved my body almost daily for several years now. It’s something that has become a solid habit in my life. I do it without having to find a way to remember to do it or push myself to get it done. This is how it feels when something becomes a habit, it flows into your lifestyle with ease. It becomes a part of who you are and how you want to live.

It wasn’t always this way though. I used to exercise only to lose weight and achieve a certain body size and shape. It was like self-torture. I’d sit at work constantly thinking about ‘having’ to go to the gym at lunchtime, trying hard to talk myself into getting there, or sometimes, justifying to myself why it was ok to give it a miss. There was constant noise in my head, a battle between good and bad.

What changed was I realised exercising for the reasons I was, doing it in the way I did, was never going to give me the results I was craving. Using exercise as a way to punish myself for what I’d eaten over a weekend, or to help me drop a couple of pounds before I stepped on the scales at my weekly weigh-in, was a waste of time and effort. Why? Because I was doing it in isolation.

Like many people, I knew it was good for me to exercise and I wanted to be fitter. I understood that I needed to look after my body and I wanted to learn how to enjoy exercise. I grew up hating PE at school and was pretty rubbish at most sports, so I wasn’t someone who naturally had the urge to participate in any kind of sporting activity. When I started to work at Nike in 2001, I was amazed at how many people loved to play sports or chose to exercise every day on their lunch break! It massively opened my eyes to what people did to bring fitness into their lives.

Over the years working at Nike, I did get into exercising and would do what I could on a lunchtime, but why I saw very little change or progress was because the reason I was doing it wasn’t right. I was fixated on being a particular size and thought I could get there by blasting it out in the gym.

Whilst trying to get to my ideal size, I was also struggling with severe anxiety, stress, sleep issues, physical pain, relationship problems, self-doubt, lack of confidence, imposter syndrome, and much more. I constantly started on new diets, convinced I could do it this time, only to rapidly fall off them again. I became obsessed with what I ate and it was usually a big chunk of my daily work conversations with colleagues. To be fair, we were all in it together, caught up in the net of believing it was simply a case of counting points and doing a step class.

What I began to learn through time and experience, was my approach to getting fitter and being a certain size was not the solution I needed, nor were my goals the ones I really wanted to achieve. I found it all starts with getting clear on your goals, which happens by getting clear on your personal why - you can read more about that in another blog I wrote here.

When you’re fully aligned with your why, you can get super sharp on your goals, which in turn drives your motivation. This motivation is what helps you to stay on track and take the right steps to achieve your goals. The steps you take, which in my case were ones to help me build a healthy mind and body, must be the right ones. They need to be the ones that help you build lasting habits. They need to become a part of who you are (all linked to your why) and flow within your lifestyle, so you do them with ease, enjoyment and fulfilment.

I realised I needed to change the way I exercised so that it became about helping me to build a strong mind and body, rather than about dropping inches or pounds. I understood the way I thought and felt was having a huge detrimental effect on my overall wellbeing, and that I could help change my thought process by moving my body. I had a huge realisation that the dieting I was always putting myself through, was never going to be a sustainable way of eating, nor was it giving my body the right type of foods to function healthily.

As I went through this journey of learning more about building a strong mind and body, I started to feel so different in my overall wellbeing. Gone were the frequent trips to the doctor for various pains, worries and constant viruses. Gone were the Mondays starting to live a whole new way of life (again) to try to find my happy ending. Gone were the battles in my head over whether I really needed to go to the gym that lunchtime or if I could justify a trip to the pub with colleagues instead.

My life massively started to change and so did my mindset. It’s a bit like the chicken and the egg; which did come first? I started to intentionally shift my mindset, but at the same time, I was also making changes to my eating, working out, my response to stress, my daily routines, sleeping, and learning lots of new things about taking care of myself. I know that all of these things helped me to develop a stronger, more positive and resilient mindset.

That’s why in my coaching, I have developed a framework to focus on what I call my five pillars of wellness. They are - nutrition, movement, stress, sleep and mindset.

I know from my own experience and what I have since learned in training to become a health and wellness coach, that it is vital to building a healthy, strong life through a holistic approach. To feel and be healthy cannot come from only one of these things. It needs to be a balance between them, and that balance will be unique for each individual. It comes down to your why, what you want to achieve in your life and why this matters to you. What goals do you want to set for yourself and how do you want to achieve these. It also needs to account for the way your life is right now and what you’d like to change, or maybe want to change but now just isn’t the right time to make it happen.

I want you to feel healthy, happy and strong, but to still be you. Not to deprive yourself and restrict yourself in any way, but to respect yourself and your body and acknowledge that to live the type of long life you want to, you must take care of your mind and body long term. There is no quick fix or short term solution to tick off and then it’s job done. It’s not possible to set a goal, achieve it and that’s it, you’ve found your happiness and can live happily ever after. It’s about finding a lifestyle that you enjoy, that energises and fulfils you, knowing you’re investing in yourself for the long game.

If you want to build successful habits that fit with who you are, the values you have and align with the way you want your lifestyle to be, you need to nurture your mind and body the right way. By approaching your health and wellbeing as a process, something that needs to come together through many moving parts that when connected, bring the full picture together, you’ll achieve what you’re looking for - a healthy, happy and strong life.

YOUR WELLNESS FRAMEWORK - Connecting the dots for health, wealth and happiness

GOOD MORNING? - Why a good morning routine is key to your happiness

WHY HABITS ARE YOUR SUPERPOWER