Hi friend!
I’m keen to share my latest experiment with you – it’s been SO interesting!
First up – I did it – I completed my September challenge which was to move my ‘beautiful’ body every day (yes I did have to add in the word beautiful because I don’t often call it that!).
At the end of August I wasn’t feeling good, really struggling with fatigue and had completely lost my mojo.
When I hosted the September monthly planning workshop for my Wildly Successful Society members, I asked them the question ‘How do you want to be feeling at the end of the month?
I realised I wanted to be feeling ALIVE – so I choose that as my word of the month.
Moving my body was pressure-free. Yes there were about 100 other habits I wanted to implement at the same time but I have tried the ‘this month I’ll do all the things’ approach and as we all know….
IT DOESN’T WORK!
Keep it simple. That was my goal. That’s why I achieved it.
Moving my body looked different depending on how I was feeling and what my daily schedule looked like.
Some days it was a slow walk and a paddle in the sea (as long as I hit my 10k steps a day it didn’t matter what the exercise was).
Some days it was PT session at the gym.
Some days I did the couch to 5k program.
Some days I hiked up to the castle (so steep!)
Most days I was up before the sun was:
My mastermind buddy and Mindfulness Coach Andrea Featherstone from Project Self suggested I try doing my daily walk or run without listening to a podcast or music because being present with your 5 senses makes you….happier.
So I’ve spent 30 days every single day having between 30 and 90 minutes ‘mindful exercise’ and to be honest when I was wrapping up on Sunday and looking back on my challenge I realised there were THREE unexpected outcomes from the 30-day move my body daily experiment.
UNEXPECTED BONUS #1
I felt ridiculously empowered. There is something pretty special about taking control of your day / time / habits. I know this, its part of my work, but after a few months of being here there and everywhere it felt so freakin good to take back control and decide how I wanted to show up for my daily life. So benefit #1 – feeling way more empowered.
UNEXPECTED BONUS #2
The second thing I didn’t expect was the mindfulness that came out of this whole challenge. Taking yourself on a daily walk, along a beautiful seaside coast with the sun rising and no noise to distract your mind turned into my daily (informal) meditation too. And as Andrea (Mindfulness Coach) shared, meditation is known to make you feel happier. And surprisingly, I did!
UNEXPECTED BONUS #3
The third bonus was getting my mojo back and feeling inspired and excited about my business again. I LOVE feeling like this! I know we can’t always be in that place, and it’s tough when you’re not, but when you are….it rocks like a rocky thing!
The whole experiment was good in so many ways, but these three things were totally unexpected and have blown my mind around the power of keeping it simple, and the beautiful RIPPLE EFFECT.
1st October and I got up and went for my morning walk at 7.15am – even though I no longer had to as part of the challenge!
Winning.
MY CONCLUSION
Habits are powerful. Empowering. And the ripple effect of where else in your life they benefit us is well worth the effort (big understatement right there).
Hopefully, this has inspired you to pick a habit to focus on and see what comes of it.
My top tip: Keep. It. Simple!! (i.e Pick one habit at a time to implement!).
My October focus is to keep up the daily movement and add in a more formal meditation practice too.
Having a home after 3 years nomad’ing is proving so good for this little non-routine girl!
Here’s to us!
Love Jo xx
