As a health coach, I guide and support others in their journey to live healthier lives. I’m their mentor as they work to improve themselves from the inside out.

Watching people transform is inspiring and keeps me motivated to continue growing and learning. I love the idea of going into everything as a beginner, which helps you keep your mind open to learning or changing your perspective. So as I guide people through the weight loss process or help them change their lifestyle habits to increase their energy, I think about how my own advice could be applied to my life.

This means I leave most sessions thinking about a change I could make in my own life. This is great, right? I’m constantly working on myself and working to become the best me that I can be. I am in control of my life and creating a happy and beautiful life.

But I recently found myself feeling incredibly overwhelmed by my own self-improvement journey. I’m working to get out of debt, learn more about money management and change my mindset around money. I’m trying to incorporate more yoga and meditation into my life. I hired a running coach to help me train for my next half-marathon. I’m working to build my health coaching business, which means every day I’m learning about business strategies, marketing and more. I’m working on being more communicative with my partner. I’m changing my diet to get relief from my regularly occurring headaches. I’m learning about essential oils and how to incorporate them into my daily life. I’m trying to lose a few pounds. I’m trying to be a better friend and make more time for phone calls, coffee dates and hanging out. I’m working on making self-care more of a priority. I’d like to read the stack of personal development books I’ve ordered from Amazon over the past year. I’m trying to be more present. The list goes on.

I felt a bit defeated. How can I be a better girlfriend, runner, daughter, friend, business owner, yogi, health coach…person?

I realized that I needed to take a step back and reevaluate my personal development strategies. Here’s what I’m doing to shed the overwhelm of self-improvement and personal development.

• Reject the idea of being overwhelmed. When we constantly use words like stressed, challenging, overwhelming, busy and hard. That is what the situation becomes. Replace those words with manageable, worthwhile and peaceful. Changing your thought process and your inner dialogue can help you see the positives in your situation and make the process feel less overwhelming.
• Remember that it’s about progress, not perfection. My feelings of overwhelm come from feeling inadequate and like I’m not where I should be. But when I’m constantly looking to the future and thinking about where I need to get to, I miss out on appreciating the process and the hard work I’m putting in.
• Choose what matters most. If your list of self-improvement goals is like mine, it may be time to cut some things from the list. This doesn’t mean they are things you will never achieve. But maybe they can be things you work on in six months from now or a year from now.
• Think about how your goals are connected. Most of my self-improvement goals build on one another. Yoga, meditation and running help me stress less, which help me to be more present in my health coaching sessions and help me to be a better partner and friend. Incorporating self-care into each day, changing my diet, running, yoga, meditation and less stress will help me lose the weight I’d like to lose. When you realize how connected your goals are, it may help you realize how important they are.

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Do you want to lose weight and feel more confident? As a health coach, I help busy women lose weight so they can feel more confident and have more energy without calorie counting or crazy diets. Schedule your complimentary consultation now! [email protected] 

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