The holiday season is officially kicking off this week. Thanksgiving is often the start of many gatherings, shared meals, gifts exchanged, and holiday parties with no end in sight. It’s easy to get swept away by all of the external obligations and forget to take care of ourselves. While it seems like there isn’t enough time, taking a few minutes each day to prioritize our health will help us enjoy this time of year more. 

Prioritizing ourselves when life is busy isn’t easy. The windows of opportunity become smaller and we must be more intentional with our time. Time is one of the biggest perceived barriers to exercise and other healthy behaviors. 

It’s common to find ourselves in a thought loop of indecisiveness around what action to take because we’re worried we don’t have enough time, and this often leads to us not taking any action at all. 

The best way to overcome this is to commit to healthy behaviors that do not consume a lot of time. Shortening your workout by increasing the intensity is a great way to get the same amount of work done in a shorter amount of time. 

Going for a walk while taking a phone call, answering emails, or brainstorming your grocery list is another one of many ways to use time more efficiently while still prioritizing our health. 

Even just five minutes of movement is better than spending those five minutes contemplating whether or not you have enough time to move. 

Another main barrier to prioritizing our healthy habits during the holiday season is our ability to negotiate with ourselves. Our brains are really good at convincing us that we’ll have time later, something else is more urgent, and that we can start tomorrow. 

When life gets busier and time becomes less available, we must mitigate our brain’s ability to negotiate. During this time of year, it’s important to make our healthy habits non-negotiable. We must commit to getting them done each and every day, no matter what. 

Making our healthy habits non-negotiable can seem intimidating, but in practice, it gives you more freedom. Each time we negotiate with ourselves and don’t follow through on our goals, we create more work for ourselves. Negotiation leads to having to re-work our schedule many times per day. It also leads to us feeling less confident in ourselves, making it much more difficult to actually complete the task the next time around. 

Making your workouts, walks, or healthy habit of choice non-negotiable will not only help you feel better physically, but will also clear up a lot of valuable space in your brain that we need this time of year. 

If you’re looking to keep your health a top priority this time of year, join me for the Move More Challenge beginning on Monday, November 27, 2023. In this challenge, I will be leading you through four weeks of circuit-style workouts you can do anywhere, a daily walking challenge, journaling practices to cultivate awareness around how exercise makes you feel, and will be with you to hold you accountable. Sign up now at www.calofitnessllc.com.

Xoxo

Coach Maggi