Healthy Living: Stop Trying to Be Perfect

Have you ever heard the phrase: "Nobody's perfect"? I'm sure you have heard this at one point or another. If you are anything like me, you believed it too. Most people do believe it because it makes sense. I know for a fact that I have made mistakes. I also know that everyone else I know has made mistakes.

Mistakes are part of being human. If you are human, you make mistakes. There are mistakes to be made in all areas of life. Anything you do that involves thinking, decisions or execution of a skill presents the opportunity for a mistake. That doesn't sound like a very optimistic view, but it is true.

The optimistic view would say that any thought, decision or execution of a skill presents an opportunity for success. This is where I often see the importance of mistakes in our lives. That's right, mistakes are important. Mistakes are what we learn from. Mistakes are what make us better. Without mistakes, we don't improve.

More importantly, without the opportunity for mistakes, we have no opportunity for success. When it comes to sports, this is a no-brainer: if you don't play the game, you can't win. If you relate it to business: if you don't call a prospect, you can't make the sale. If you don't show up to the meeting, you can't contribute ideas. The list goes on and on and it's the same in all areas of life. Without the opportunity for mistakes, there is no opportunity for success.

The bottom line is: if you are afraid to make mistakes, you will never succeed.

This is a lesson I learned a kid. Sports taught me this lesson. It took a few more lessons in the real world before I fully understood it and how it would work in the business world. Now that I get it, life and business are much easier. Do I see mistakes and failure? Of course I do. I experience them regularly. But I also see success daily. Some success comes from just trying again. Most of my success comes from the things I learned from the past mistakes.

When it comes to health, mistakes are also important. Yet, health is an area that people are afraid to make them. When discussing exercise routines with people, I hear far too often: "I can't do it every day, so I'm not going to do it at all." Or "I don't have time to do it for an hour, so I won't do it at all."

These are excuses that I hear frequently. I hear them, not because these people are not good enough to get exercise, not because exercise is too hard for them. I hear these excuses because these people are afraid to make mistakes. It is easy to start a new routine. It is not easy to keep a new routine going. Each time you run into a challenge, it is difficult to overcome it.

Challenges will arise. Your plan to overcome these challenges is what will get you through. When you set out to do something new, you are bound to make a mistake or two. When you make those mistakes, you can do one of two things:

1. You can give up
2. You can learn from the mistake and try again

When you try again, you can either give a similar strategy another try or you can start over and try something new. Either way, you are deciding that you are not done and you are able keep going. When you keep going, you can succeed. When you quit, you can't succeed.

In health, mistakes are not the end of your routine unless you quit. They are simply a roadblock that causes you to stop and think about what you are doing. You have a choice at every roadblock. You can choose to give up or you can choose to keep trying.

The choice is yours. When we were kids, we learned that nobody's perfect. We learned that quitters never win and winners never quit. We learned all of these things and applied them to other areas of life. Socially, professionally and financially, we have chosen to keep going. In order to live healthy we need to make that same choice. You can try to be perfect, but it won't happen.

Being perfect is an illusion. For some reason, we think that our health routines need to be perfect. The fact is, nobody is perfect in any area of life, including health. Healthy people are not healthy because they are perfect. They are healthy because they have learned from mistakes and keep trying to live healthy. Health is not about being perfect. Stop trying to be perfect and start doing something that you can do today. If you make a mistake, learn from it and do something differently until it works for you.

Healthy Living Is a Journey

Healthy living is a journey, it is not a destination. Healthy living requires reduction, replacement and maintenance. In the first instance, healthy living requires one to reduce excesses. Secondly, replace excesses with moderation and variety. Finally, one must maintain.

The single greatest challenge to living healthy, is not having a complete knowledge base, and the support structure necessary to stay on track. If you visualise healthy living as a journey and not as a destination, perhaps you might become excited about the traveling experience, and decide to venture outside of your usual routines.

Everyone enjoys traveling therefore, by comparing healthy living to a traveling experience, everyone can personalize their experience in unique ways. Nevertheless, we all need directions and when pointed in the right direction, sometimes that is all that is needed to spark an interest that will transform lives.

Living in an age of fast foods, take-outs and delivery most of us take in an excessive amount of calories without being aware of it.The truth is, we all know immediately when we try on that clothing item and it does not fit. Instead of taking decisive actions to cut our intake, we ignore the obvious by going to our favorite retail store and simply buy a fancy piece of clothing that is one or two size larger. Unfortunately,this process is repeated until on day we look in the mirror and we ask our selves who is that person looking back at me? At this point, not only are we concerned about how we look also,we realise we are not healthy. Starting a detoxification process or a diet plan that will help us reduce excessive body weight, will promote a better quality of life.

Additionally, we take in processed foods that are deficient in essential vitamins and minerals therefore, in order for us to get the right nutrition, we will have to replace our nutrition lifestyle. If we want different results, then it might be helpful to look around for various health remedies and online support materials to help improve and maintain good health. The road to living healthy is long, and although the journey is challenging we must never give up. This article serves only as a guide to point you towards better health. We must begin to reduce by detoxification, dieting and by performing some form of exercise. Detoxification is as old as human-kind so perhaps there is a good reason for its continuation

The Mind Also Matters in Healthy Living

Healthy living is not only about tucking into fresh fruits and vegetables, steering clear of junk and processed foods, and hitting the gym every other day. It is also about cultivating a healthy mind. In fact, healthy living starts with a healthy mind.

Get Your Mind Right

Everyone who has ever tried to stick to a diet plan or an exercise regimen will vouch for the truth of the age-old adage that the mind indeed rules over the body. The tenets of healthy living are simple-eat healthy, exercise regularly, and steer clear of vices like smoking and drinking-and there are not many who do not know these. But there are countless many who do not have minds strong enough to coax their body into abiding by these rules.

So, here are some rules that will help you win the mind game:

Don't let the weighing scale rule you. Losing weight and maintain your ideal body weight are usually the two most important goals of healthy living. But this does not mean that you should let the weighing scale stress you out. Instead attune yourself to the signals that your body sends out-do you feel fresh when you get up in the morning, have your energy levels got a boost after you have switched to a new workout routine, or do you find yourself craving less for sugary snacks after embarking on a new diet plan-and gauge for yourself your health and fitness levels.

Find a way, other than going on an eating binge, to cope with stress. Stress is an inevitable part of our daily lives so it really does not help your healthy living goals if your way of coping with it is to reach out for food. There are countless other ways of coping with stress-talk to a friend when down in the dumps, count your blessings when feeling depressed, or pick up a good read, put on some music that you love, or go for a walk in the park when feeling anxious. These are your ways of training your mind to seek refuge in something other than food.

Egg yourself on. You can be your best motivator; you just need to know how. To not fall short on your motivation levels, first make sure that you are striving for realistic goals-"I will fit into my old jeans by the end of two months" and NOT "I will lose ten pounds 4 days." Then look for small signs of improvement as you make your way along. For instance, if at the end of two months you find yourself barely managing to squeeze into the pair of jeans, do not mope but instead convince yourself that you are along the right track and if you keep up with the good habits, you will reach your goal in no time at all.

Positive and Rational

Healthy living is all about creating a positive mindset-being optimistic when the odds are low and being strong enough to listen to and steer your body towards healthy living goals that suit you and not what the book says.