Getting Healthy, Finding Happiness: All Through the Power of Building Good Habits

“If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters.”

Colin Powell

The above quote is right on par with my typical posts, this blog as a whole, and what the following information will be about. However, I want to highlight an additional quote; this quote has quite a bit more length, but it hits home on every aspect of our lives. It is also written by the illustrious Rachel Hollis, so, there’s that.

“You need to be healthy. You don’t need to be thin. You don’t need to be a certain size or shape or look good in a bikini. You need to be able to run without feeling like you’re going to puke. You need to be able to walk up a flight of stairs without getting winded. You need to drink half your body weight in ounces of water every single day. You need to stretch and get good sleep and stop medicating every ache and pain. You need to stop filling your body with garbage like Diet Coke and fast food and lattes that are a million and a half calories. You need to take in fuel for you body that hasn’t been processed and fuel for you mind that is positive and encouraging. You need to get up off the sofa or out of the bed and move around. Get out of the fog that you have been living in and see your life for what it is.”

Rachel Hollis – Girl, Wash Your Face

Phew! That’s a lot of words, but MAN does she say it right! Let’s break this quote down so we can see just how right she is.

“You need to be able to run without feeling like you’re going to puke. You need to be able to walk up a flight of stairs without getting winded.” YOU NEED TO BE ABLE TO MOVE YOUR BODY! That is what she is saying! And she prefaces that with mentioning that you don’t need to be thin, and you don’t need to look stellar in a bikini – you simply need to be able to live. To live and enjoy the little moments.

Before admitting to being mindful of this, I found that I was just so tired all the time. I could play with my kids (I only had about 20 pounds to lose) but I didn’t want to. I just wanted to sit around, or read a book, or simply watch the activity. How sad is that?! But once I started doing little things, like going for a walk around my neighborhood, that led to bigger things, until I could run into my daughter’s school with her, and I enjoy doing so.

“You need to drink half your body weight in ounces of water every single day.” I am sure that you have heard this fact before, but so often we think we are hungry when we are simply thirsty. We really don’t drink enough to support the functionality of our body, and I am guilty of it as well! My oldest daughter has kidney stones, so we see a urologist and a nephrologist once a year. Both of her kidney specialists tell her over and over that if her body is telling her that she is thirsty, then she is already dehydrated.

“You need to stretch and get good sleep and stop medicating every ache and pain.” Preach it, sistah! Who gets enough sleep around here? Anyone? No? Didn’t think so. I am currently living this life, as my 4-year-old has spent the last week and a half with a horrid virus that has given her a nasty cough. Even if she isn’t waking herself up, she is waking me up, so I have been up and down with her too many times to count.

This is also a hard concept for some of us, because we cannot get anything done until our kids are in bed. SO, you stay up extra late in order to have quiet time, or to be able to talk with your spouse, or to do more work from home, or to write blog posts .. somehow, however, there needs to be even ground and a balance in getting your sleep, and having some you time.

“You need to stop filling your body with garbage like Diet Coke and fast food and lattes that are a million and a half calories. You need to take in fuel for you body that hasn’t been processed and fuel for you mind that is positive and encouraging.” Well, if this isn’t the holy grail of everything that makes up health. YES! People are unbelievably willing to spend every penny they have on their vices – the Diet Cokes, the Starbucks or Dunkin’ orders, the McDonald’s chicken nuggets for that quick and easy dinner – but they are so unwilling to spend it on their health. I saw it CONSTANTLY when I actively shared Zeal. I still share Zeal, but I am not as active as I once was, and part of that is due to frustration. People would consistently tell me that they couldn’t afford it, but it was a fraction of what they spent at every drive-thru they went through within a day. It was obnoxious. These bad habits are going to get you no where FAST .. or at least no where good.

“You need to get up off the sofa or out of the bed and move around. Get out of the fog that you have been living in and see your life for what it is.” Life isn’t going to stand idly around, waiting for you to live it. You need to take control now – create the habits that help propel you towards the life you want to live.

The definition of a habit is, ‘a settled or regular tendency or practice’. You may have a habit of locking your front door when you leave for the day. Or perhaps your habit involves feeding your pets right before you feed yourself. Habits make up the entirety of our day, and we spend a lot of time fostering those habits, whether they be good or bad.

But, habits are the building blocks to your health – towards your good health or your bad health. Do you go to the dentist regularly? Do you take the stairs instead of the elevator? Do you have a sugared drink with every meal? Do you eat your feelings instead of sorting through them?

We can be talking about emotional health, and what it is that you do to satisfy your mental happiness – or the physical elements of health, and how you bring contentment to your life, physically. All of it ties together. I don’t know anyone who can say they are happy, mentally, if they are unhappy physically.

There are other habits that you build within elements of your life, that work with your emotional and physical happiness – financial health demonstrates whether you have good or bad habits when it comes to your money. Organizational habits dictate how good someone is at keeping their house in order, their schedule followed, and keeping track of their belongings. And, relationship habits – do you hold onto relationships, do you value them, and are they positive. It all ties together.

Good habits brings you happiness (it’s not rocket science). So, start changing your way of thinking; try things that you are nervous about doing; work and practice at getting better at things that you may feel you struggle with; read books that support you and help you grow personally (or read about habits in general); set goals and tell people about those goals. Because you are strong enough to make the changes necessary to live a better life. But it truly can only be you who makes those changes. That may be an overwhelming thought, however it becomes a pretty proud and incredible moment when you develop those good habits, and change your life positively, because all the credit then belongs to you.