If you don't choose your habits, they'll choose you

If you don't consciously decide what you want, consciously create your life?

Guess what?

Yep. Life happens anyway.

And like many things, maybe it's easier to start small, rather than big, like, well, LIFE.

Smaller things get you into the HABIT of creating what you want and achieving them and building that practice.

Small things add up to become big things (I know you know this, I'm not being patronising, just thinking out loud).

And talking of habits, habits are a great place to start.

If you don't consciously choose your habits ... guess what?

Your habits will choose - and define, BECOME you. Part of you.

What you do and what you choose is who you are - and you can change that at any time.

Without consciously choosing habits you might find habits find you ...

The habit of watching TV mindlessly.

The habit of endlessly scrolling Facebook, looking for something, anything interesting and thought-provoking.

Oh and similarly, the habit of feeding yourself food that doesn't have the nourishment, the nutrition, your body needs and craves, so again you're left hungry, endlessly wanting more.

But what more?

Housework habits, 'duty' habits, oh-I-have-to-do-the-ironing habits ... then flop on the sofa for some TV.

THESE habits are often masking that you haven't CHOSEN your true 'YOU' habits.

Well, not so for everyone I guess.

I suppose some people genuinely choose to do these things (and for most people YES sometimes) ... and that's great ... but when it's not a choice, it's a mindless HABIT?

You know you can choose another habit?

Starting with perhaps how do you WANT to feel?

NOT how do you currently feel.

Giving in to the voice of the how you NOW feel will NEVER move you into being how you WANT to feel, to be.

You have to consciously choose it.

How you want to feel and who you want to be.

The person who gets home after a long day (ok, many long days, this isn't a one-off) and eats a takeaway full of goodness-knows-what whilst slumped in terrible posture watching - well, do you even know what? - on TV.

YES, sometimes.

But also, YES you're exhausted and stressed and tired ... but you CAN also choose other habits.

It doesn't have to be hard.

Some things (including plenty of recipes on my site) are easier and quicker to cook fresh than to heat up or order in.

And it's all about TRUE self-care and looking after you.

That means choosing a shower, choosing a great book, choosing a quick stretch or yoga online practice to keep it easy (I do).

(I'm not saying you instantly turn into someone who wants to go to the gym at 9pm, but hey you MIGHT choose that, now you think about what you want to choose).

It might mean writing, journaling, a Skype with a friend, learning something new.

Habits become non-negotiables in your life (like cleaning your teeth).

Mine aren't (yet) always so, but I really, really now feel it and miss it when I don't for whatever reason DAILY:

- journal in the morning
- make good food choices that nourish me (and taste great of course)
- move my body in some way (usually Yoga With Adriene
- personally I also love to cook so a day without cooking something makes me feel 'off'

Ha! Just caught myself I thinking I need to think of more than these three / four ... but WHY?

I'm all about making it easy and you know it's actually not always that easy to do those three or four key things.

Isn't that funny, how our human brains almost want to make things HARDER?!

These are my chosen habits - that make me feel great, give me a foundation for my day - when I do them I feel stronger, clearer, more able to get everything else done.

I'm going to choose to add in a short 10-minute meditation practice soon but for now making my journaling and yoga practice daily - allowing it to become daily - allowing that time for me, to say that time for me daily is precious, is a PRIORITY ...

I'm still learning to make that my reality.

What are - or will be - your chosen habits?

The ones that make you YOU, the you you choose to be?

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How do you WANT to feel? (Not what DO you feel like?)

It takes just a split second.

One decision.

As my favourite poem says:

'In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse'.

The question isn't 'what do you feel like doing right now'?'.

Well, not usually, the question is, 'what do you want to feel like? what is the outcome, the result you want?'

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I fell out of my daily yoga habit that made me feel so great, strong and good.

There was a mini heatwave (but hey 35 degrees in a small Notting Hill flat is too hot for yoga).

So that was a few days ... and I wasn't feeling it.

But I missed the outcome for sure .. but somehow, seemingly not enough to get back in the habit.

Why is that?

That the things that make us feel great, that we KNOW beyond a shadow of a doubt are GOOD ... we still resist.

And then I jumped and fell and was shaken up and covered in bruises and couldn't even THINK of a downward dog without wincing.

But that was ten days ago and it's been totally nagging at me that I haven't got back to my daily practice.

The last few days, honestly, I've been pretending that I'll just do a short practice - that 7-minute one - but guess what?

I didn't even do that.

Today ... I got sick of myself and my excuses for not doing what makes me feel great.

And I did it fast!

I decided I wanted the outcome.

I wanted to feel how good I feel after half an hour of yoga.

Mat out. Did it.

And yep, feel great.

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It's always about the outcome, the result, the desired feeling.

Never about what you feel like in that moment.

Sometimes the two are the same.

Sometimes they're not.

But it's that easy (and that hard, I know).

Practice, remembering how good it feels to make that decision - makes it easier, makes that choosing-the-outcome-muscle easier to exercise.

What's the outcome you want?

Choose THAT action to take.

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Being your best version of you

This is what it's all about really, isn't it?

When we really get down to it, this is what's really going on.

We have this yearning inside, even if don't recognise what it is.  

This feeling that something's not right, that it's 'off'.

When we're not fulfilling our potential it, somehow irks, it niggles away at you ... sometimes (like me, for YEARS) and you kind of know things aren't RIGHT, but then again, well, they're not WRONG are they?

You're going through life like everyone else, going to work, going on holiday, passing the time, but y'know, as time passes (and passes), that urge gets deeper, that feeling that there MUST be something more.

And for us? It's even worse isn't it?  We always KNEW there was going to be more, but never knew what it was going to be, waiting for it to happen.

And now, realising that it's not going to happen.

I'll just keep turning up for work, keep doing STUFF to fill the time, not even GOING THERE with what that deep deep down LONGING is trying to say, that's trying to come to the surface.

When we were younger we just KNEW we were destined for more, but we thought destiny would find us.

After what, 20-something years of living a multiple-choice-life ('I'll choose from this, this or this that I can see in front of me) we realise ... hold on ... what do we REALLY want?

We can CHOOSE.

We can choose our lives, our reality and we can then make that happen.

THAT is being the best version of you, the one that allows those feeling to come up, searches them, finds what we really want ... and then we start to go down that path.

For me, it was both big (leaving a job to create the mind-space and time to play with, have fun with, finding what I loved) and small (what I started with - I just started a blog about Thai cooking - but oh goodness that was HUGE for me - the first creative thing I'd done for years, the first thing I was excited about, the first thing I'd done because it was truly because I HAD A MESSAGE and it wanted to come out and I wanted to share).

The best version of me was to give myself - for the first time probably since a child - time to create and share - sharing was important to me. 

I look back now and despite having had an on paper great life with great friends and family and relationships ... I was a bit stuck. I was bored, to be honest, bored with myself.

And I didn't really give anything either, this is a two-way thing! I don't think I gave much in hindsight. Creating and sharing helps with GIVING and giving makes you more open and being more open leads to more creativity, more love, more people, more ideas .. just more LIFE.

And then there was the unsaid unhappiness with the weight gain.  I put it on I think now because I was stuck in other areas of my life - it's definitely 'chicken and egg' on this one.

So if you don't want (yet) to start digging deep and working on finding your real inner motivations and creativity but you're unhappy with your body, your fitness, your food, your relationships, your weight ... well, I'd say start with tackling one of those ... 

When we start confronting, being honest about, tackling, taking control of ANY ONE area of our lives we're not happy with, it starts a ripple effect.

Taking ACTION at one area of becoming YOUR best version of you, that's all you have to.

For me, as I started creating and sharing ... I became even more aware that I was unhappy in my own body.

I had started to believe that when I DECIDE something and choose actions that will help me get to my goals then that's what happens.

DECIDING is the main thing.

BELIEVING it next.

SETTING THE GOAL and then just EYES-ON-THE-HORIZON focused just taking the actions and choices to get there.

You have to choose. But only most of the time - some times you make other choices (of course it's not a straightforward linear process - we're human!).

But once you've made THE BIG choice, you just focus on the goal, the horizon, and go for it.

Little changes, small results = huge happiness at stepping into being the figurehead of your ship.

One area of life moves to another, you see changes and feel excited and empowered and 'why didn't I do this before?' - and you know, that doesn't matter. You're (we're) doing it now.

Life leads us to THIS point and NOW is the only point that matters.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to be the best version of you (whatever that looks like to you). 

Mine included losing weight and feeling really happy in my skin ... and starting to achieve that lead to wanting to be fitter and stronger.

All of it comes together for my big vision for myself as the very best version of myself - I now KNOW I can have it all (as I define having it all for me).

I think we have a tendency - and I don't really know why - to think we can't have it all.

We can be successful in business ... but not look after our health.

We can have healthy, happy bodies .. but maybe our relationships suffer. Etc etc etc.

NOW ... step into IT ALL.

Set ALL THE GOALS! Decide and choose and go for it.

Choose one at a time - I promise, one will lead to another.

Or choose all at once.

And especially for those of us with a few decades of life experience ...

Well, I think once we choose to hear the calling, listen to that little voice, refuse to accept that the weight gain is inevitable, that it's 'too late' to achieve our big goals or whatever it is ... we know ourselves well enough to just go get it all.

In the way that best works for us. 

It can be easy. It can be fun.

And step-by-step, keep going, keep taking the steps, be bold, be brave, become YOUR best version of you.

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Sometimes it's about saying 'no' to reach your goals

Some people are going to be reading my posts about Supreme Self Care and thinking ...

'Yeah ok for you, you don't have x y z you have to do',

'HOW does she find time?'

'Well, that's ok for you, you don't have kids to feed and get up for school'.

Well, no, I don't, no.

But I do know that I do have plenty of other responsibilities (as we all do) and I don't have unlimited time.

Or do I?

I believe in the concept of Einstein Time (read The Big Leap - a fave book that changed my life and concept of time).

And I really, really believe in the concept of CHOICE.

That means I prioritise my self care stuff, and my writing, and my doing ALL the things I really care about and am passionate about.

That means I also say NO a lot.

To fun things as well as the learning to say no to things you really don't want to do but (used to) feel obliged to.

It's easy to think that learning to be someone who can say 'no', means saying 'no' to things you don't want to do.

Ha! MUCH more it means saying 'no' to things you DO want to do.

I say no to TV.

I say no to parties.

I say no to meet ups with friends and family.

I say no to that book I want to read.

I say no to sleeping another half an hour.

To going to bed earlier and to getting up later.

Etc, etc, etc.

It means - when I SAY prioritise, I MEAN prioritise.

No, it's not easy.

I never said it was easy.  I said it was SUPREME self care to take the best care of me.

It means really thinking about what it takes to put you first - and not JUST your physical, emotional, spiritual .... also your CREATIVITY.

I believe we all NEED to be creative beings, whatever that looks like for you ... and for me, I need time and space to even work that out.

It means prioritising you and what you want to do ... and the results and goals you are going to achieve.

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CHOOSING my life ... 4 years on ...

“If you change nothing, nothing will change”

Tony Robbins

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And that moment of realisation, that moment where you finally feel it and KNOW that it is YOUR decision to create your life and make it happen ...

It happened to me four years ago this month. 28th April.

I was in a very dark place, looking back, in a job I knew was terrible for me ... and harming me ... but it was really ME harming me allowing it to continue.

And I'd been letting life drift by really my whole life - choosing A over B, like a multiple choice life, NEVER and I mean NEVER really deciding what I wanted and what would make me happy and going after that.

It took until my 40's.

it doesn't matter how long it takes, it matters that one day you DO see, do feel, do know that it's ALL and ALWAYS down to you.

YES, there are pressures and challenges of life, but THE biggest step is deciding.

What I did that day, was finally say enough. I gave in my notice at the awful job - without a job to go to - and suddenly felt my long long long ago ebbed away ME power start returning.

Of COURSE I could find another job perfect for me and my career in three months (it took four weeks).

And this time I made sure it was right for me and also would allow me time, mental capacity ... to start writing, cooking more, launching my own things I'm passionate about, my own side passion projects.

It can be so easy not to even recognise that you're in a dark place and going through the motions, getting through each day, surviving basically.

I was someone who on paper looked like I had a good life - and I did ... but I was trapped and miserable and not growing, not CREATING.

You can always decide and choose.

(You don't have to give your notice in though) :)

But it is your one life and if you've been stuck for a while and this sounds like you ... maybe start thinking what YOU want.

For me ... I wanted not to be scared, ill, bullied, tired, weak.

I wanted to write and create (and be me and be strong).

It didn't LOOK big to anyone else!

To the outside it looked like I left one great job in a great industry and went to another. Oh and started a little blog about Thai cooking.

That little blog about Thai food made me alive again and got my creativity going again. That first day, on my first blog site, pressing 'publish' - no post is scarier than that one.

I was still living in a fear mode really, worrying what people would think or say, not having the incredible community and support I do now.

You CAN start creating your life at ANY time in your life.

The big thing, the only big thing ... is DECIDING.

And that 'little' project?

Could become your real BIG thing, your biggest thing.

What do YOU want to do, create ... be?

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There is NOTHING wrong with wanting to lose weight

It seems to me that the whole self-acceptance thing has gone too far.

It now actually feels that you're WRONG in some way and that you'll be judged for wanting to lose some weight.

You are in charge of you: you don't have to sign up to the 'love yourself at any size' brigade.

You CAN say you'd feel happier in your own skin by losing some weight.

You don't have to dress it up as wanting to be 'healthier', or 'more empowered' - although those are great things to want too.

There is NOTHING wrong with wanting to lose weight.

To wanting to feel happy again in your own skin.

With wanting to get back to your own personal happy weight.

But some days it feels like all I see are messages that you don't have to change yourself to be happy - you ' just have to learn to love yourself the way you are'.

Well, I disagree.

Totally disagree.

If that's for you, then hey go for it.

I genuinely want each and every one of us to feel happy in our own skin.

But for me, I know ... I was NEVER going to feel happy in my skin, overweight, uncomfortable when I bent over to put my shoes on, out of breath ... feeling NOT LIKE ME.

It's all gone too far I think.

The solution is NOT for everyone to 'learn to love yourself' or 'be happy at any weight, you're still the same person'.

Because ... actually for many of us?

We're NOT.

We're not the person we are when we can move easily, walk and run up the stairs freely. When we're feeling good in our skin. When we start enjoying clothes again.

When we feel more OURSELVES, our real selves again.

Yes, I think it's gone too far.

There is NOTHING wrong in saying, declaring ...

'You know what? I'd feel happier if I lost some weight'.

You don't have to couch it in other language, dress it up as something more spiritual or whatever is is.

You ARE allowed to just want to lose some freaking weight and feel happy in your skin.

We were not born overweight and we weren't designed to be overweight.

Do NOT feel that in this current climate of acceptance - which is great of course, acceptance of everyone as they are and as they are happy to be, YES .. but you?

If you're NOT HAPPY being overweight, there's nothing wrong with saying so, declaring your mission to lose the weight - there's nothing to hide.

THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH WANTING TO LOSE WEIGHT WHEN YOU'RE NOT HAPPY THE WEIGHT YOU ARE.

Oops, lots of shouty caps there!

It actually makes me really angry that people are basically being told to change their mindset - to be happy being unhappy in their own skin!

F-that! You can be, do and have whatever you want!

And if you're unhappy in your skin, at your current weight? You know what?

YOU DECIDE ... YOU get to decide to change that.

Set your goals, and commit.

Then choose to take the actions needed to get the results you want.

And keep going.

I'm with you all the way :) 

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What do you want your life to be?

So, a few years ago, four years ago, was when I finally 'woke up'.

In some ways, when I was born, or became an adult ... took responsibility.

It feels now looking back to my whole adult life before, that I'd been living in the dark.

I was in quite a dark place emotionally too - in a really awful bullying job, but then something happened in that job that made me suddenly realise I didn't have to do it. I DID have a choice.

And that was the beginning.

I realised that in the WHOLE time before then, I had never once realised that it was my choice. And now I mean my life.

I never once decided consciously what I wanted my life to be, who I wanted to be, what I wanted to make it.

I chose from the choices I could see - this holiday or that, this job opportunity or that one, even relationships.

My eyes opened and since then I've been consciously experimenting and exploring and discovering what I CHOOSE and what I WANT and make my life to be.

It started with baby steps. Well, I say that but it's was actually a pretty big step deciding that I didn't want a stressful job, and I wanted something that gave me time to pursue finding out what I DID like to do and want to do.

And as these things tend to, once I knew that's what I was going to choose, I found a job which at that time was a ten minute walk from my house (unheard of in London! We've since moved office but that's ok - at the time it was exactly what I needed).

I started blogging about Thai cooking and sharing some recipes.

Doing something CREATIVE at last. For ME.

And my whole life started to change, to become somehow CLEAR and I started to feel my way into how it felt to realise that I could make things happen if I just CHOSE.

So, it took into my 40's to realise it - that I'd been stuck, not thinking, just letting things happen, drifting really and letting other people - particularly work - dictate my life. And happiness.

It's NEVER too late to start to choose and create the life you want. Consciously choose.

You can be anything you want.

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