How to Make Time for Wellness
This week’s episode is about how to shift your mindset so that you can find the time for wellness.
You can have all the tips and strategies, but if you’re not able to shift your mindset about how you’re thinking about wellness and health those strategies will get you nowhere.
Learn how to implement both mindset and strategy into your wellness routine.
How to Make Time for Wellness
Read on to learn about the 3 ways to shift your mindset, and 9 strategies to guide you through finding pockets of time in your busy schedule to make space for wellness.
Today’s episode is about how to find time for wellness.
This is about real life and real wellness.
These are the exact habits, strategies, and mindset tips I give my clients, and I am so excited to share them with you.
If you haven’t already, use the free resource guide that goes along with this episode, the Wellness Personality Quiz.
On how to make time for wellness:
This is the million dollar question, and so many people come to me with the concern that they just don’t have the time.
Maybe you’ve heard this idea before: It’s not really about time, it’s about priority.
I really want to dig into that idea.
“You find time for the things you prioritize, and the things you don’t prioritize or that you don’t think really matter fall to the end of the list”
I want to dive into priorities, but I also want to honor where you are in this season of your life.
On mindset:
You can have all the tips and strategies, but if you’re not able to shift your mindset about how you’re thinking about wellness and health those strategies will get you nowhere.
What’s missing in wellness is this mindset piece.
Everyone wants to give you a plan or program, and if you’ve found yourself struggling to find success in them, chances are it’s mindset that’s missing.
Here are three ways that you can shift your mindset so that you can find time for wellness:
1 | Identify what it means to be healthy for you.
This is harder than it seems!
At the end of my interviews with guests on the Feel Good Effect, I ask my guest what health really means.
Think about what it really means to you.
Ask yourself:
How do you define health?
How do you want to feel?
“If we don’t know that that’s what we’re working for, it’s so easy to get off track and to feel completely lost and not know how to come back”.
2 | Know your why.
If we don’t know why we’re doing something, it’s very unlikely that we’ll be able to sustain it.
Why wellness? Why prioritize? Why make the tradeoff to make the space to take care of yourself?
I like to use “when I’m” statements to fill in the blanks:
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When I’m physically well, I can…
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When I’m emotionally well, I can…
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When I’m mentally well, I can…
Consider how when you’re well, the things you can do for yourself, and the things you can do for other people.
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When I’m physically well, I can do… for myself, and… for others.
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When I’m emotionally well, I can do… for myself, and… for others.
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When I’m mentally well, I can do… for myself, and… for others.
This helps create a bigger picture of what health means to you and feels like for you.
“Flipping the script on goal setting toward a feeling, toward a version and a life that you really want, brings so much more clarity and purpose, so that when it gets difficult in the daily grind to prioritize that time, you know why you’re doing it”
3 | Know your wellness personality barriers.
If you haven’t already, take the Wellness Personality Quiz here to figure out which wellness personality type you’re working with and what barriers you might come across.
The three high-level barriers that might come up are: perfectionism and all-or-nothing thinking, comparison and jumping from thing to thing, and guilt and overwhelm.
Chances are, you have a combo of these factors.
If you know the areas that you’re challenged by, you can really hone in on how to leverage them into strengths.
On wellness strategies:
If one of these resonates with you and you know you’re an obliger (from Gretchen Rubin’s four tendencies, listen to the episode to learn more), send this episode to a friend to have that accountability you know helps you.
Here are 9 strategies:
1 | Do an honest audit of your actual week.
Do an honest audit of your week, not the perfect week you wish you had, but your actual week.
Evaluate how you spend your time to look for pockets of 10 minutes.
Find a strategy that you can actually do for 7 days, and look for pockets of 10 minutes.
Maybe you can get up 10 minutes earlier, maybe it’s between activities, maybe you’re waiting in line or in traffic, or maybe it’s scrolling through a social media feed.
As you go through your day, just bring awareness to these pockets of time without judgement.
2 | Decide how you want to spend these pockets of time.
Brainstorm a menu of items, thinking about the 3 M’s:
Meals: use this time to meal prep, make a healthy snack so you won’t reach for a sugary one later, or start a crockpot meal (go to realfoodwholelife.com for more resources and recipes)
Movement: get in a quick workout (listen to an interview with Robin Long on finding time for exercise), take a walk outside or up all the stairs at work.
Mindset: listening to parts of a podcast throughout the week, journaling, reading, social media (if you find you can really connect and feel good from it), taking steps for a new hobby or business.
Don’t worry if you miss a day, give it some time, and remember that you are so worth this.
3 | Together or alone?
Think about if you want to do this alone.
If you value time with just yourself, then consider that when planning your time.
Or, do you want to have more social and community time?
Consider who you want to spend these wellness moments with (alone or together) when thinking about how to schedule your pockets of time.
4 | Move it off the chore list.
Sometimes when we think of wellness, we think of it as just another thing to do on our chore list, which can make us resentful.
Think about wellness as a gift to ourselves and as an essential way that we take care of ourselves.
If it does feel like a chore, find ways to infuse joy.
(If you hate running, then don’t run!)
Find ways to make your wellness work for you so that it can be a priority in your life.
5 | Schedule a wellness day
Maybe once a month, even for part of a day, find a way to schedule a wellness day.
It doesn’t have to be a trip to the spa.
Maybe it’s going to a bookstore, or meeting a friend for coffee or tea and taking a walk.
This is guilt-free time when you’re investing in yourself that will allow you to be a better version of yourself.
6 | Tell the people around you what you need.
This can be an amazing way to find more time.
Tell the people around you what you need, how they can help, and really honor the time they give you.
7 | Acknowledge the resistance, and do it anyway.
It’s hard to put something new into our routine when we’re already feeling overwhelmed.
When you’re feeling that resistance, do it anyways.
“Consistency doesn’t mean perfect, it just means doing it more often than you don’t”.
8 | Become aware of the feedback loop.
When you do these wellness things, notice how it feels.
When you create the space and time for wellness, you’ll start to see a difference in your life.
Use the feedback loop as motivation the next time things are hard.
9 | The rule of 3.
Every morning I set three wellness goals around meals, movement, and mindset.
I put three rubber bands on one wrist, and when I do one of the three goals throughout the day I move one of the rubber bands to the other wrist.
Then, at the end of the day I can reflect on what I focused on that day and reevaluate my priorities.
Think about using this concept to reflect on how you integrate wellness into your daily life.
Resources
Gretchen Rubin and the Four Tendencies
Robin Long on finding time for exercise
3 More Feel Good Effect Episodes You’ll Love!
How to Create a Morning Routine in Less Time with More Impact
Unpacking Mindset: What Mindset is, What it’s Not & 5 Ways to Shift it
The 5 Biggest Wellness Mistakes You’re Making (and How to Fix Them)
