Alignment

 Alignment is a key component to living your healthiest life. It’s not just about doing healthy things. It’s more than that. In order to live healthy (physically, mentally, emotionally, all areas of health) you need alignment to get started and to stay with it.

It’s internal first. In fact, it’s more internal than you think. What is your focus? If you are focused on something that isn’t aligned with who you are, it won’t work. It’s that simple. For example, if I decided that I want to be a world champion surfer, it would not be aligned with who I am. In this case, geographically it would be impossible to train for surfing while living thousands of miles from the nearest wave. That’s an easy example. But while most misalignment is more subtle, it still shows up in obvious way. And it is taking place internally, which can make it harder to identify and sometimes even if identified, can be hard to listen to. The simplest way to think about it, even before getting started, is to picture yourself in a month, 3 months, even 6 months. Can you see yourself doing the activity then? Is it something you want to do enough to stick with it long-term? If not, it isn’t going to be a part of your routine for very long. That’s not all bad, as there are plenty of advantages to trying new things and not feeling like you have to commit to them for life.

But that is why alignment is tricky. It is internal, meaning it’s not about “what you are doing”, as much as it is about “who you are”. In my surfing example, am I the kind of person that can do to the beach every morning and get in the water to train? Am I the kind of person that wants to be up and dawn and diving in the cold water every single day? Even if I was able to move to the beach, I wouldn’t be likely to surf every morning, let alone train to the level of a professional. That would not be aligned with who I am.

And that is where the real alignment comes in: Who are you and what do you want to do? When we set goals, even small goals, we are telling ourselves that today’s version of me wants to become tomorrow’s version, or next week’s version, and so on. We are setting out to move ourselves down a path. We don’t have to make that progress all at once, so it is important to be realistic about what we aim to achieve and in what timeframe.

But it is also important to think about how the different versions of ourselves will match up. Physical health is what most people think of when we say the word healthy. Most people think about exercise and nutrition. This is a big part of the equation, but it’s not the whole thing. In fact, many people put mental health in peril when they set out on a physical health goal. Exercise is often a source of deep-rooted self-talk and even shame, and the same can be said with nutrition.

The gap between what we want to be doing and what we are doing now is often large. Sometimes it is so large that it feels impossible to get from here to there. And that is where the shame comes in. Each time we try and fail to go from here to there, the further away there feels.

What if we can find alignment within ourselves. It’s not just about finding the right goal. It’s also about finding the right perspective, so that our future self we want to become is aligned with who we are now. I can hear the confusion with that, even as I say it. “But if I am trying to be a different person, why do I want to be aligned with who I am now?” Because, who you are now is who you are now, and you are where you are now. That is where we start the journey. We are starting it right here. If we aren’t connected to this spot, who we are, standing right here, how are we going to embody the person at the next steps?  

If I had to boil alignment down to a single sentence, it would be: “It’s about the quiet, steady decision to stop doubting yourself. To stop contorting yourself to fit in rooms that were never built for you.”

I know those rooms are where we are “supposed to be”, and where we “should strive to fit”. They may feel like the “rooms we want to be in”. But have you thought about what you really want? You are not wrong for the room. You are just in the wrong room.

I jumped from our physical health journey to something more holistic. I did that for a reason. Think about starting a new walking routine. You are picturing yourself walking every day. If today, you aren’t walking at all, there is a gap between here and there. No matter how wide or narrow that gap is, we still need to make sure alignment is there. For example: Why aren’t you walking today? It might be as simple as “I just haven’t done it, but I have everything I need to get started”, you are good and the next steps will be easy. If it is more complex, you may have more issues. Another obvious example: If you are injured and that injury prevents you from walking, you can’t be aligned with a goal to walk more, or at all.

This sounds simple, but you’d be amazed at the goals that people come up with before thinking about the alignment. And that is why I went holistic before. We often have ideas on who we should be or what we should be doing. This is the same human impulse whether we are talking about an exercise goal or a new job. We have a self-image. We have an idea of what is expected of us. We have desire to live up to those expectations. We have voices from family, friends, church, bosses, and even strangers. (see social media and advertising)

That becomes the question: Who am I doing this for? Or more specifically, who’s voice am I listening to when I think about what I should do next? If we are listening to someone else’s, it may be obvious what we “should” do next. Join the gym, buy new shoes, or sign up for a meal service. These are all good options, in a vacuum, but are they the right step for YOU?

Setting goals is more than just finding the right thing to do. I could interview people on the street and I bet every single person could tell me what a healthy routine looked like. They could even tell me where, how much, and some very detailed descriptions of things they have done in the past. But, many of them would also tell me that they aren’t currently doing those things. They would have a list of reasons that they couldn’t keep it up, got out of the habit or just plain can’t do some of these healthy things.

I don’t say this to pick on people or shame the general public and their “lack of health”. Nor do I say this to shame you by making it sound simple. It’s actually the opposite. I say this to highlight the fact that EVERYONE knows what to do. But if they know what to do, why aren’t they doing it? They aren’t doing it because they haven’t found alignment with any of the steps they’ve taken in the past.

If you are not where you want to be, it’s not because you are lazy or somehow can’t do it. You can do it. You just need to start with alignment. More specifically, you need to think about your goals and set them in a way that is aligned with who you are. If your goals are aligned with you, who you really are, and who you want to be, you can not only do it, but I would argue that you will be unstoppable once you’ve gotten started.