A Refreshing Take on New Year’s Resolutions (EP 38: The Vegan Life Coach Podcast)

Here we go again… The New Year is right around the corner and it’s time to consider resolutions… How will you go about deciding on one?

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Are you fed up with making resolutions that you don’t keep? Maybe you see the tradition as pointless and you’ve given up on making one all together. You might even see resolutions as a great way to set yourself up to fail, yet again.

I get it! I haven’t made a New Year’s resolution in as long as I can remember. That doesn’t mean, however, that I don’t move into each new year with goals and dreams. In this episode Stephanie and I offer you an alternative to resolutions that will help you put a fresh spin on the yearly tradition right here, right now.

Alternative

Instead of one overwhelming resolution, let’s look at making simple, manageable commitments to yourself that will lead to replacing dis-empowering thought patterns and limiting beliefs with empowering ones. In order to do this, you’ll need to start by identifying the obstacles preventing you from stepping into your power.

Instead of weight loss as a resolution for example, I encourage you to first look at the reasons you want to lose the weight. Is your reasoning based on health and longevity because you love yourself and you want to be active into old age? Or is it because you hate your body, can’t stand to be in pictures, and avoid the mirror at all costs? If your reason is the latter, there are some deeper concerns to address.

The majority of our clients come into our Coaching Programs wanting to lose weight and change the shape of their bodies. What they must accept though, is the process for changing your body starts with your mindset. Loving, accepting, and respecting yourSELF AND your body as it is right now is the prerequisite for changing it.

We’re not talking about a quick fix here. We’re talking about doing the mental and emotional work it takes to get to a place where you make decisions out of pure love for yourself… Only then does will power no longer matter… Only then can you feel confident that you will continue to make the choices that will serve you best for the rest of your life (creating a sustainable lifestyle you love).

Using weight loss as the example, a commitment you may want to make to yourself in 2021 is to look in the mirror and say, “I am perfectly imperfect and I love, accept, and respect myself as I am right now,” every day (or whatever mantra hits home).

There you have it! If you find the perspective we’ve presented here intriguing, I encourage you to learn more about how you can transform your mindset, body, and life with the 6-Week Intuitive Food & Fitness Bootcamp, starting with our new QUIZ (free) HERE.

We’d also love to see you join our Empowered Vegan Life Facebook tribe for free support as you start this incredible new chapter in your life.

I’ll end with this… Kick the excuses to the curb right here, right now. You have the power to write a new story for your life in 2019! Let’s do this!!

– Ella


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Forget Resolutions… Try This!

Here we go again!

The New Year is right around the corner and it’s time to consider resolutions… How will you go about deciding on one? Are you fed up with making resolutions that you don’t keep? Maybe you see the tradition as pointless and you’ve given up on making one all together. You might even see resolutions as a great way to set yourself up to fail, yet again.

I get it! I haven’t made a New Year’s resolution in as long as I can remember. That doesn’t mean, however, that I don’t move into each new year with goals and dreams. I’m going to offer you a couple resolution alternatives I use that will help you put a fresh spin on the yearly tradition right here, right now.

Alternative #1

First, instead of one overwhelming resolution, let’s look at making simple, manageable commitments to yourself that will lead to replacing dis-empowering thought patterns and limiting beliefs with empowering ones. In order to do this, you’ll need to start by identifying the obstacles preventing you from stepping into your power.

Instead of weight loss as a resolution for example, I encourage you to first look at the reasons you want to lose the weight. Is your reasoning based on health and longevity because you love yourself and you want to be active into old age? Or is it because you hate your body, can’t stand to be in pictures, and avoid the mirror at all costs? If your reason is the latter, there are some deeper concerns to address.

The majority of my clients come into the 6-Month Plant-Empowered Coaching Program wanting to lose weight and change the shape of their bodies. What they must accept though, is the process for changing your body starts with your mindset. Loving, accepting, and respecting yourSELF AND your body as it is right now is the prerequisite for changing it.

I’m not talking about a quick fix here. I’m talking about doing the mental and emotional work it takes to get to a place where you make decisions out of pure love for yourself… Only then does will power no longer matter… Only then can you feel confident that you will continue to make the choices that will serve you best for the rest of your life (creating a sustainable lifestyle you love).

Using weight loss as the example, a commitment you may want to make to yourself in 2019 is to look in the mirror and say, “I am perfectly imperfect and I love, accept, and respect myself as I am right now,” every day (or whatever mantra hits home).

Alternative #2

Another commitment may be to start chewing your food thoroughly, to a paste, before swallowing. If that sounds silly to you, just know that it sounded silly to me too when I heard it recommended. I did it anyway though, and it seriously changed my life. I had digestive issues for years, along with anxiety about when I would eat because I always felt bloated after a meal. The issues completely went away with the simple commitment I made to myself to chew my food thoroughly!

If all of this sounds a bit daunting, don’t worry, I have created a thorough Self-Assessment worksheet (adapted from the 6-Month Plant-Empowered Coaching Program Workbook) that you can download for free HERE!  

As nerdy as it sounds, being Type A, I actually love filling out self-assessments. I also love self-exploration, as it is a necessary step toward personal growth. Growth requires us to take the risk of hopping outside our comfort zones, something that happens when we start digging deep and evaluating our mindset and emotional health.

The Self-Assessment evaluates several areas that our Plant-Empowered Coaching Program covers:

  • Your eating mindset (relationship with food)
  • Your body image (relationship with your body)
  • Your emotional health (relationship with yourself and others)
  • How you operate (from a place of abundance or scarcity)

Interestingly, all these areas are interconnected. If you have an unhealthy relationship with food, you are likely to have an unhealthy relationship with your body. If you have a poor body image, you’re likely to lack the tools you need for emotional health. If you’re unhealthy emotionally, there’s a good chance you operate from a place of scarcity. Get it?

Once you have the awareness, it’s time to start getting educated about the root causes, and learning the tools necessary to begin the rewiring process. I have created many free resources to help you get started. All the resources will give you suggestions for simple commitments you can make to yourself in the New Year.

Alternative #3

On the other end of the spectrum from making a simple commitment to yourself, is making a seemingly impossible goal. I’m talking about shoot for the stars! The truth is, anything really is possible when you develop self-love and use the Law of Attraction to put out the energy you want to get back. Maybe you want to spend a month in Australia and scuba dive with sharks. Maybe you want to make a million dollars doing what you’re passionate about. Maybe you want to inspire a hundred people to go vegan. I mean really, what’s the worst that can happen… you don’t accomplish the impossible goal? Big freakin’ deal (not)!

If the thought of setting a seemingly impossible goal  brings up anxiety and fears of failure, you can probably guess my response. Identifying the root of that fear, and gaining tools to empower yourself so that you are no longer a victim to your fears, is what needs to happen before moving forward. This takes us full circle back to creating simple, manageable commitments to yourself.

Alternative #4

I want to finish with a commitment to yourself that will help you regardless of which areas you struggle most in. Eliminate one or more dis-empowering phrases from your vocabulary.

Phrases like:

  • “I have to” (read all about the power of using, “I choose to” instead HERE)
  • “But” (negates everything you said prior)
  • “Why me” (puts you in victim mode)
  • “I can’t” (takes your power away and leaves no room for figuring out another way)
  • “I’ll try” (no, you’ll either do it or you won’t… you get to choose)

There you have it! If you find the perspective I’ve presented here intriguing, I encourage you to learn more about how you can transform your mindset, body, and life with the 6-Month Plant-Empowered Coaching Program. I’d also love to see you join our Empowered Vegan Life Facebook tribe for free support as you start this incredible new chapter in your life.

I’ll end with this… Kick the excuses to the curb right here, right now. You have the power to write a new story for your life in 2019! Let’s do this!!

A New Twist on Resolutions for 2017

Ahhh, 2017! A new year is well underway. Many of us are filled with new hopes, new dreams, and new goals as we vow to attack this new year with more gusto and resolve than the years in the past.

One of the most popular New Year’s resolutions is to lose weight, eat healthier, and become more fit. Gyms are packed at the start of a new year as weight loss products hit a spike in sales. Everything is going so great as the excitement of getting to the new you electrifies the air…and then February comes. So what happens? What is the thing that makes so many of us fail so soon into the beginning of our goal to being healthier and more fit?

One thing I see over and over again is that the majority of people set a really hard generalized goal and after the first few moments of not being perfect, resolve themselves to being a failure and slide quietly back into their comfort zone of the way things were. There is nothing wrong with a hard goal. However, when you fail to specifically set the little steps required to reach that big goal, you set yourself up for a very very hard struggle. Wanting to lose 30 lbs is fantastic. That’s a hard goal. No one ever declared losing 30 lbs was an easy task. In order to get to the bottom of those 30lbs, you must map out a road to get you there. Part of that road MUST be leaving room for you to mess up.

There are many ways to go about losing weight. While there are some tactics that I strongly disagree with, like counting calories and measuring food, oh and starving yourself…that one is always a no no, I’m going to focus on the part of the journey so many people forget about when they first begin. Messing up. Not being perfect. Feeling like you are starting over and over again. When beginning a lifestyle change, or setting out on any goal, you MUST remember to give yourself permission to mess up, because at some point you will fall down.

Giving yourself permission to occasionally fail is not saying you should go about your goal half-assed. In fact, any goal you have I strongly encourage you to have a burning passion for. The more passion you have, the more energy and hard work you will commit to it. Get to the root of what gives you that passion. Why do you want to lose weight? To have a better sex life in your marriage? To feel more comfortable in your clothes? To have more energy to keep up with your crazy energy bound kids? To be more confident to walk into a room of strangers? To feel just plain better because you are tired of feeling sick and tired? All of the above? Determine in the beginning what makes you passionate about this goal, mark it in big bold letters high in the sky, set yourself on fire, and go!Picture

Now, as you roll onward with your fiery heart and banner set ablaze with determination, prepare yourself to fall down. Many, if not all, people fall their way to success. That multi-billion dollar owner of that cool thing you just saw on TV had about 50-100 previous cool ideas that was thought to be a success. That incredibly toned fitness model that you most likely could bounce a coin off her round little booty did skip the gym on one or more occasion and has been known to total a bag of tortilla chips from time to time. My incredibly handsome hardworking husband who started an new company that flourished in the first year worked his ass off, got discouraged on several occasions, and went months without getting any returns on leads. What is the common factor here? A burning passion coupled with permission to fail.

Failure doesn’t need to be a negative word if you don’t make it one. Failure is one of the most fantastic learning tools we have. In falling down, you learn how what not to do in order to avoid falling down again. This one may take a few spins around the merry-go-round, and thats ok. This is where open mindedness comes into play. If at first you don’t succeed and try try again is giving you a massive migraine, well try a different approach.

I thought for years tirelessly counting every last calorie that went into my body was the only way I could be thin. I tried, failed, tried again, failed again, got sick of trying, binged, tried, binged some more, tried again. After beating myself in the head for a few years (my stubbornness beaming through) I finally let go of the fact that this method was not working. In fact it was creating more damage by igniting obsessive compulsive behaviors. I finally let go and went down a different road. The passion was still there. I burned with the need to be healthy, feel good about myself, and not struggle with food (insert head slap for thinking counting every calories would get me to not struggle with food). However, I allowed myself to fall. I picked my butt back up, sometimes faster and stronger than others, and refused to lose site of the goal. I reworked some things, fine tuning methods as I went.

So many people fall, maybe get up a few more times, fall again, and quit. Giving yourself permission to fall from time to time is honoring the fact that you are human. It’s investing empathetic energy back into yourself for a change. This whole thing to better health is a journey. People often forget that the journey never ends. There is the journey to losing the weight. Then there is the journey to learning to maintain the weight. Then there is the journey to breaking those extra pesky small habits with food that are unhealthy. Then there is the journey to loving yourself and feeling comfortable in your own skin. All of these things are tightly interwoven into each other without end. To make the most out of your journey, honor and respect your imperfections as a human being and embrace the event of falling down when it happens, so you can quickly pick yourself back up again.

Much love!
Lindsey