Last week I had a great opportunity of being a guest on the Healthy Living Panel at the RevolutionHER conference. Our topic was Healthy Living for Women. Our moderator asked questions about how women can set up their lives to optimize both their mental and physical health.
Here are a few takeaways from our panel discussion:
-
Build your life from your strengths, not your weaknesses. As a former elementary teacher and school principal, I often reminded students and their parents that eventually school courses could be selected based on strengths and interests. Students won’t have to participate in an art class or music or French class later in high school if that isn’t their thing. Life is so much easier when we use our strengths to move forward.
-
When you set goals for yourself, predict the obstacles that may stand between you and achieving them. For example, identifying what might prevent you from exercising first thing in the morning will allow you to build a contingency plan that allows flexibility.
-
Prioritize your mental and physical health ahead of others. This is a hard one for women. Almost always, someone in our family will need us…a child, a parent, a spouse or a pet. Your dog needs a walk, but do you need yoga? Go to yoga.
-
Articulate your values often and align your daily life, as best you can, with those values. Be time efficient by combining your habits so you can “kill two birds with one stone”. If you want to nurture your relationships and you love nature, why not set up a weekly hiking date with a friend?
Most importantly, try to find the fun in life. Nothing leads to burnout faster than being on a perpetual hamster wheel of tasks and doing for everyone, but yourself. Fun looks different for each person. Find your fun and don’t let anyone else rain on your parade.
What are your best tips for living a healthy life? Feel free to drop a comment below. Let’s revolutionize self-care together!
- Margaret
Margaret is a Certified Professional Life Coach, Certified Professional Recovery Coach and a Certified She Recovers Coach. She holds a B.A in Psychology, a Masters Degree in Education and has worked in the field of Education for over 30 years.