Following on from our recent blog posts, one where Tom talked about overcoming years of emotional eating and unhealthy habits and one where I talked about overcoming health challenges, we have received so many messages from people who are totally intrigued by our "Treating Life as an Experiment" approach.
We are thrilled to hear that so many of you want to 'have a go' at this yourself and so we thought we would do a series of blogs helping you to do this by starting with taking care of the BASICS.
Whenever we work with clients on a one to one basis, no matter what challenges they are facing, we always ask some key questions which help us understand how they are taking care of the fundamentals in their life, things like eating, sleeping, breathing etc.
Sometimes people seem a little confused we are asking this when they are bringing us a work or a relationship problem but over our years of experience we firmly believe that no matter what challenge we are facing, if we focus upon looking after our basics, the challenge becomes more manageable. On top of that, we also know that as soon as we begin to face a challenge, we stop caring for those basics too.
Here are what we call the fundamentals or the basics. Whilst looking at these, you could ask yourself how you're doing on each of them.
Sleep - How is it? Do you feel you get quality, restful sleep? How much are you getting?
Nutrition - How's your diet? What do you know you need to stop eating? How's your gut health? How many hours a day are you eating?
Breathing - How is your breathing? Do you take 'anxious' breaths? Where is your breath coming from? Do you have an respiratory problems?
Movement - Do you exercise? How much are you sedentary? How many steps do you walk per day? Do you find any joy in movement?
Hydration - How much water do you drink? Do you drink alcohol, fizzy drinks, energy drinks? Are you drinking a lot of sugar?
Stillness - Where do you find your stillness? Do you meditate? Do you feel connected to yourself? Do you trust your gut?
Purpose - What brings you joy? Do you feel your life has purpose? What do you think you 'should' be doing?
Relationships - Who nurtures you? Who drains you? Are you lonely? Are you feeling a sense of lack in any of your relationships?
All of these are huge questions to ask ourselves to help us take better care of our basic needs. We never recommend that you tackle them all at once but first work on the one you know you've been neglecting and then take small incremental steps towards improving it.
For example, if you know you don't move enough, challenge yourself to stand up every hour for at least 60 seconds. If you know your breathing isn't great, challenge yourself to do 60 seconds of focussing upon your breath every morning. If you know you don't drink enough water, start filling the water bottle and carrying it around with you!
All of these then lead us to creating the algorithms Tom and I discussed in those previous blogs:
If I have been sat for an hour then I will stand for 60 seconds
If I have a quiet moment, then I will focus upon my breath for 60 seconds
If I am sat at my desk, I will take a sip of water every time I send an email
These tiny steps may seem inconsequential to begin with but as we have proven and as we see with our coaching clients this not only adds up to reaching goals but most importantly this adds up to creating new positive life long habits.
Over the coming weeks, we will create blogs looking at each of the basics in more depth to help any of you struggling with them. If however, you can't wait and would like to work with either of us, then please just reach out and we will be delighted to have a chat about how that can happen.
If you are feeling lost right now, then know that we can help you find your way.