I once hired a personal organizer to help me get my office and closets in order. She gave me some of the best advice I have ever heard. ” Some people are ploppers, some people are folders, some people are stackers. You can’t make a folder into a plopper. You have to do it your way.” I was thrilled to hear this and have been more organized ever since. Plopping things neatly wherever I go.
I find this advice to be so true when it comes to moving our bodies. Each of my clients wants to move their bodies every day and each one has a different way that works for them. So the coaching work we do involves discovering what will work for them.
Finding what way moving your body feels good to you is the first step. Like my personal organizer advised go with what works, what is fun and feels good. I have a few clients who love being in the water and that is fun for them, funny those same clients don’t like running and I who love running am not a water baby. I can run a marathon but can hardly swim a lap. So really explore what feels good.
Another thing to find out is what are you going to do anyway? So say you are going to visit with a friend adding a walk to the visit or making the visit be a walk is a great way to get a walk in. I actually prefer walking and talking to going out for lunch, so for me, a fun friend visit is walking with Ruffus and a friend. So instead of saying something like I have to find 30 minutes to walk, think of it as part of what you were going to do anyway.
It just so happens that I have a couple of clients who are committed to walking each day and now due to a huge work strike are out on the picket line walking, a perfect example of using what you are going to do anyway.
By choosing what way you want to move and combining it with what you were going to be doing anyway you create the circumstances to honour your committment to yourself to move daily. We hear a lot about discipline, for me the idea of honoring my word to myself is a gentle and loving way to think about it.
As always, I hope this has been helpful.
Coach Susy