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Building a Healthy Year: June/July

Let’s face it: Summer goes way to fast. We just started. The kids just got out of school, yet somehow the 4 th of July has already come and gone. I don’t want to be too negative, but August will be here before we know it and than it’s already Fall. You get the point. For that reason, I’d like to use this part of the calendar to do something easy. We don’t always have to be striving for greatness or pushing the biggest rock of the steepest hill. Part of living healthy is knowing when to relax, how to relax and giving ourselves the grace to trust that our choice is the right choice for us. Trust me, I’ve spend enough time beating myself up over a day, an hour, even minutes or seconds lost or missed. It’s never worth it. It never leads to a better week if I’m still upset about last week. Today will not be better than yesterday if all I do is focus on the things I didn’t do yesterday. So, this month, or more realistically, these two months, the heart of summer, June and July, let’...
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Via Forte: A Different Way of Thinking About Wellness

  A Different Way of Thinking About Wellness Over the past year, I've made some significant career changes, but more importantly, I've become much clearer about my work. One of those changes has been joining the Maple Grove Fire Department. It has been an incredible experience, and it has reinforced something I've believed for a long time: People don't change because they receive more information. They change because someone walks alongside them. They thrive when they are supported. This is my team and my community and I couldn’t be prouder to support and be supported here. This has really brought me back to my roots. About the same time, I also started Via Forte ( Path of Strength) as a return to the work that started my career and has always been my calling: supporting people toward healthier, more intentional lives. Early in my career, I trained individuals and teams, built corporate wellness programs and worked with organizations to create healthier wor...
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Building a Healthy Year: May's Theme is Maintenance

May is about Maintenance (May-tenance… 😊 ) If April was about assessment, taking a closer look at the routine, what is working, what is not working, what do we need to change or do more of? May is about maintenance. Maintaining your routine is just as important as starting it. In fact, you could argue that maintenance is the whole game. This gives us a nice progression from last month: April: Notice what’s working (and what’s not) May: Protect the time, habits and activities that are working   The key to living healthy is to make it, whatever your routine is, to make it last long enough for it to matter. The people that have the best long-term routines aren’t the ones with the most intense or hardest workouts. They don’t have more willpower than you do. They don’t even have knowledge that you don’t have. They simply do something repeatedly. Practice and repetition is the whole process. Every time you do something, you are training your body, mind and even your planning ...
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Self-care: Put Your Own Mask On

Put Your Own Mask On In the airline safety briefing, they have a consistent message: “Put your own mask on before assisting others”. You’ve heard it before on every flight. It sounds obvious in that scenario. If I run out of breath while trying to help someone else, we are both in trouble. It makes sense when we think of safety at 30,000 feet. BUT, it’s a lot harder to live on the ground. Most people I work with are wired to take care of others first. We have family, work, team, and all kinds of responsibilities. Over time, that starts to feel normal. Each of these is necessary and can even become part of our identity. But there’s a cost. When your energy is low, your patience shortens. Your clarity fades. Your ability to show up the way you want to starts to slip, even if your intentions haven’t changed. A few things to remember when thinking about self-care: First, a disclaimer: Self-care is as simple as doing what you need for yourself. I’m not talking about some com...
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Building the Year: April Assessment

  April – Assessment Building the Year: April Assessment As we move into April, we have officially entered the second quarter of the year. No matter where you are with your goals, the first part of the year is over, and the first three months are behind us. With our plan, we are building the year, but more importantly, we are setting ourselves up for success each month. By building month to month, we are making sure that each month will help us put something in place that will help next month, and as we do that over the course of the year, we know that we will be further along. One thing that breaking the year up into smaller parts is designed to do, aside from giving us smaller steps to focus on, is the allow for more adjustments and more places to assess. That is what April is all about: Assessment This month, we are going to pause and assess. Where are you now? What steps have you taken? What is working? What is not working? What challenges have you run into? ...
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You're Never Starting Over

  You’re Never Starting Over When we hit a set-back, it can feel like we have failed and have to go back to the drawing board. While it feels like you are going all the way back to the beginning, you are really never starting over. Even if you feel like a bigger plan has failed or you have to try a new approach, that doesn’t mean you are back at square one. The best part about progress is that, even if results come and go in different increments, our skills, knowledge and experience are cumulative. Even if I’m only down a few pounds and feeling like I’m stuck today, I have been working on this plan or plans like it for my entire adult life. As I talked this week with a client running into a major roadblock, I remind them: It pays to remember that you have been here before. Not only have you run into days as difficult as this, but you have also overcome them. You already have the experience of this frustration. You already have the tools to advance through this. This is an i...
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Longevity: What Actually Matters

Longevity: What Actually Matters Working with people of all ages, longevity has always been a topic we discuss. I've always had clients approaching, some well over 50. As I get closer myself, I find that the conversation is quite a bit more real. Actually, I feel better having this conversation now that I'm here too. My perspective has shifted from a young coach trying to help people, to a coach, doing the same things you are doing. I am living this right along with you.  As these conversations go, somewhere in your 40s, we start to realize another dreaded milestone is on the way. Full transparency, I actually had a realization before I hit 40. I wasn't even worried about 40, let alone 50, but my body had other plans. For whatever reason, 39 was a year that looked and felt very different for me physically. It hit me hard. Everything was harder. My energy was lower and recovery took longer. It was a nice “preview” of my 40s. And the reality is, I somehow have continued to ...
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