You sit in front of a beautiful mountain sunrise and start your day with your favourite yoga and meditation ritual. On your way home stop by your local café and pick up a delicious superfood juice. You arrive at work. Your office is a naturally lit,  calm environment, full of your favourite people and you never have to attend a pointless meeting. You have access to fresh fruits and vegetables and also always manage to fit in a 1-hour lunch break. You finish work and it’s still light outside. You head out to the beach track for an evening sunset run before heading home. Your fridge is stocked with your favourite healthy foods and you cook-up a super-healthy paella dish. At around 10pm your ready to hit the pillow at fall straight off to sleep.

How great does this sound?! You may not have the exact same vision, we all have our own ideal day or view on how living a healthy lifestyle should look like.

Having a vision is great and creating your own vision board is extremely effective at influencing your mind and harnessing your intention to bring about positive change. However, often having expectations of what an act will look like before trying it out for yourself can stop you doing it before you have even started.

The expectation of the action is usually way more than is actually required to reap the benefits of the action itself.

Check in with your expectations, are they in-line with your current commitments. For example; if you work 10 hours a day (without negotiation) is fitting in a daily 1-hour gym session a realistic expectation to achieve?

Common expectations that stop us in our tracks:

• If I can can’t work out for at least 1 hour then there is no point.

• If I can’t sit in solitude in front of a beach sunset, then there is no point in meditating.

• For my run/cross-fit class/Spin class… after work I should be feeling full of energy and motivated to go – if I don’t then what’s the point, I’ll probably not have a good run away, so there is no point in trying.

• If I cannot whip up a gourmet meal for dinner, then I may as well get a take-out.

• If I can’t sit and enjoy a good couple of chapters of my book in one go, then there is no point in even picking it up.

• I should enjoy all my meals as if it is my last…

• A healthy day should only include clean foods,  I’ve had that biscuit I’ve ruined it so there is no point in continuing.

• I need to workout 4 times a week for it to count, I’ve missed a session this week so I may as well just start back next week.

As a driven, hard-working and successful individual it is natural to want to be successful in everyway at living a health lifestyle, by not starting and waiting for the perfect situation you are creating a ‘get-out of failing’ zone for yourself, “if it isn’t perfect then there is no point in doing it.”

Setting realistic expectations are the small stepping stones to creating the dream life you desire.

What it is not, is lowering your expectations – it’s making them actionable and achievable.

You may not be able to do everything you want, but what you can do is make changes that bring in elements to living the lifestyle you want.

Don’t keep waiting for something to change or for the perfect situation, start living out your vision now in the best way possible you can. Yes, you may want to spend 20 minutes a day meditating, realistically you may only be able to do 2 minutes, enjoy it for what it is, 2 minutes is more than 0 minutes, these 2 minutes will bring you closer to living a healthier lifestyle than 0 minutes every time.

Good health should not be something that is only a vision. You have the responsibility to look after your health and wellbeing. To help you get started and to avoid overwhelm, try some expectation or ‘vision’ swaps, listed below are some ideas to help you get started.

Swap

• Expectation: 1-hour gym workout.
• Swap for 10 burpees on the minute every minute for 10 minutes.

• Expectation: 5 days of home cooked meals.
• Swap for 2 days of home cooked meals by cooking once and eating twice.

• Expectation: 1-hour lunch break.
• Swap for 20 minutes away from your computer.

• Expectation: Daily sunset runs along the beach.
• Swap for a weekend morning sunrise run.

• Expectation: 20 minutes of meditation.
• Swap for 5 minutes to eat your breakfast without any distractions.

• Expectation: To read a book a month.
• Swap for listening to a podcast in your car on your way to work and back.

A health coach supports you in identifying and overcoming the obstacles that are holding you back to living your healthiest and happiest lifestyle. If you would like to know more about the health coaching program get in touch by emailing heidi@heidijonescoaching.com