Not Just Health & Fitness
Covering all things health and fitness, but not just health and fitness.
Expanding from the basics to encompass everything under the umbrella of living your best life, while sharing insights into my personal journey along the way.
Not Just Health & Fitness
#3 Elevate Your Life in 2024 by Asking Yourself the Right Questions
Embark on a transformative journey with me, Helena, as we grasp the essence of true change to meet our new year aspirations. Ever wonder how the small steps we take each day can lead us to our grandest version of self? You're about to find out, as I guide you through journaling prompts that will challenge you to align your daily hustle with your deepest ambitions. Discover the secret to intentional living, even on your days off, and how infusing high-vibe habits into every task can reflect the quality of your life's work.
Friendships and self-growth often take a back seat in our adult lives, but not in this heart-to-heart conversation. I'll share how being an active, uplifting presence can transform not just your friendships but also your professional network, sparking more meaningful and relatable exchanges. And when it comes to personal development, we'll explore the power of pausing and applying newfound knowledge before racing ahead to the next shiny thing. Join me as we replace the 'low vibe' with a 'high vibe' lifestyle, setting the stage to step into the person you're meant to become by 2024.
See my website for information on my coaching services https://helenaslyfitness.com/coaching-packages/
Connect with me on instagram https://www.instagram.com/helena__sly/
Welcome to the Not Just Health and Fitness podcast with Helena. I'll be talking all things health and fitness, but not just health and fitness. I'm expanding from the basics to encompass everything under the umbrella of living your best life, while sharing insights into my personal journey along the way. Let's get into today's topic. Hi friends, welcome to episode number three of the podcast. We've just wrapped up Christmas and Boxing Day, and my family, we celebrated Christmas on Boxing Day, and so today's the first day back at the office day, back at the desk, and it's that weird time of year when you don't know what's going on. You don't know what day the weekend is. However, it is a good time of year for reflection and setting goals for yourself for the new year. Today, I want to be talking about looking into the new year and setting goals and ways to be able to use journaling to work out who it is that you're trying to become, and that's the main principle of this is, rather than thinking about just what the goals are that you want to achieve, it's who do you need to be to be able to achieve those goals? What are your behaviours like, what are your thoughts like, what are your mindsets like? Because if you are going to behave the same way as you already are, you are going to get the same results as what you already have, and you need to be able to grow and evolve into a new version of you to be able to achieve those goals, not just say that you want to achieve something and make no changes. Every year, I see people going like 2024 is my year, 2023 is my year, no matter what year it is. They're like yeah, it's going to be so great and so different, but it's not going to be different if you're not different. And so I want to encourage you to think about what kind of thoughts you need to have and what sort of behaviours you need to change to actually make a difference this year, to actually make 2024 better than 2023. And I'm not just talking about the first two weeks of the year. If you want to be able to reflect at the end of 2024 and go fuck, yeah, I achieved my goals. I achieved what it was I set out to. I've grown and evolved into the person who I wanted to, that's got to be done by groundwork and really taking on board the notion or the practice of learning and growing and evolving into a new version of yourself, and so I've got a list of journaling prompts that I'm using that I thought I would share and explain a little bit on the thought process behind them, and hopefully you can take on board some of these as well and maybe create some more for yourself that feel more aligned with what it is that you want to achieve. But the process of how I've done this, I think, is a way that you're going to be able to make some positive change. So my very first journaling prompt and when I talk about this you don't necessarily need to be writing down in a journal book A lot of my journaling when I'm thinking about trying to create change in certain areas of my life, a lot of the time I just jot it down into the notes on my iPhone and I've got so many notes on.
Speaker 1:You know, there was times in my previous recent relationship where there was things that I was trying to sort my head around, that I didn't necessarily feel right to be writing it in a book, but I could drop my thoughts down whenever they were there. Or if I wanted to brain dump before I went to sleep or if I was confused about how I was feeling about something. I use the notes in my phone, and so sometimes I do use a journal that I physically write in, and other times I just use notes on my phone. So don't overcomplicate it for yourself. Don't feel like you need to write a whole page to answer a question. Sometimes one line lets you see what it is that you need to see from a certain journaling prompt. But anyway, getting to the first one is what do I need to do every day to embody my best self? And so that's really thinking about you know what's the best version of me do? What's some of the low vibe behaviors that I need to just sort of leave behind? What are some of the high vibe behaviors that I can incorporate into my day? So, what do I do every day to embody my best self Is a great question.
Speaker 1:To start off your journaling I've also included how do I spend my day off? I want to be a little bit more intentional with how I'm spending my time off. Am I wanting to go for adventures? Am I wanting to be social? Am I just staying at home and avoiding work? I work from home, and so home is work, and my head is often thinking about work while I'm at home, whereas if I get out and I go to the beach or I go for a hike or I catch up with a friend, I actually get to switch off from my work, and that puts me in a better position to switch back on from my work more fully, rather than creating a habit of just being in that same environment, but not necessarily working, but not necessarily switching all the way off. So how do I spend my day off is something I want to be more intentional on. I've gone into work. What mindsets do I need to have to reach my goals?
Speaker 1:One of these mindsets that I've written down for myself is how you do. One thing is how you do everything. Or is this a high-fived behavior, or is this a low-fived behavior? And having thought processes like that help you pull yourself up when you're lagging in a certain area, when you're not applying yourself fully to things. Realize that. Okay, if I'm not applying myself fully to putting the laundry away, I'm just leaving that little bit all the time. That's not completely finished and I've just got that little chair pile of laundry. Or I'm not completely finishing cleaning the kitchen before I do. That also shows up in not completely finishing your work tasks. That also shows up in leaving a few reps behind at the gym or skipping a set. If your behavior is, and your habit is, to leave things short in some areas, it's more likely gonna show up in other areas, especially the areas that you're trying to change. And so everything you can do, do it to a standard that you're happy for everything else to be as well. So how you do one thing is how you do everything is one of the mindsets that I'm moving forward with into the new year.
Speaker 1:Obviously, I'm an online coach, and so another journal prompt that I'm using is what does my ideal client look for in a coach? That one actually comes after the journal prompt. Before that, sorry, is who is my ideal client? So, getting really clear on who it is that I enjoy working with the most, which population group seems to get the best benefit from the way that I coach, and so that I can start trying to make sure that they're the people I'm speaking to. Their problems are the problems that I'm speaking to when I'm talking on Instagram and advertising my services making sure that I'm reaching the people who can benefit from me the most, and then going into the thought process of those people. What do they want most out of a coach? And making sure that my service is aligned with that and the way that I coach, the way that I put my programs together, is aligned with that. Still, getting clear on who I wanna become I have a journal prompt saying how do I eat and how do I train and this version of myself that I see at the end of 2024, she looks great, she feels great, she has great energy. She trains like a beast. How does she need to eat and how does she need to train on a daily basis, on an everyday thing, to be able to reach that goal?
Speaker 1:Next journal prompt on becoming who you wanna become, or getting clear on who you wanna become, is what do I do in the first hour of each day? That can be really powerful to get consistent on. For me, it's partly like get up and dress for success. So within my first hour I'm up, I've got my makeup on. If somebody wants to zoom, call me. Or if a client needs a call, a short notice, which would potentially mostly only be my prep clients that I speak to out of schedule. Or if I wanna get on Instagram and start talking about a thought that I have. I don't need to then go and get my makeup done before I can act on that or that. I can show up. So get up and dress. For success is part of my first hour. Also, planning my day is part of that first hour, and so that first hour might look different to you. Maybe you're journaling, maybe you're meditating, maybe you're going for a walk Doesn't matter exactly what it is but plan intentionally what one, two, three things are you gonna do in that first hour every day? That's gonna help you live a more aligned lifestyle. On the back of that, what do I do in the last hour every day? If you've got something intentional that you do in the last hour, that's gonna help you sleep better. That's gonna help you set tomorrow up for success. That can be really powerful to be intentional on. So what do I do in the first hour of each day and what do I do in the last hour of each day?
Speaker 1:Personally, I'm single, but this sort of thought process can definitely be used for people in relationships, and so my next two prompts are what qualities am I looking for in my ideal partner or relationship, and what kind of personal relationship is my ideal partner looking for, kind of like the coaching one. I'm looking at them from what I want, and then I've gotta look back at myself and go well, what does that person want? And so if you're in a relationship, you can tweak the language on these questions a little bit, but you can definitely be looking at how you want your relationship to be any year's time, and who do you need to become to be the right partner to be able to let your partner express that. And so that's something that I have done some journaling on and a lot of deep thought on is like, what do I actually want out of a relationship and who is that kind of person? And if there is that person that's of that high standard that I have, what are they looking for in a person? And there is even a bit of a philosophy on this that if you'd sit down and list out every quality that you want in a partner, you should then ensure that you can tick all of those qualities off in yourself, because somebody who has all of those qualities isn't necessarily looking for somebody who doesn't have those qualities. They're probably looking for somebody else who's aligned, and so that can be a great one for looking at your relationships.
Speaker 1:The next prompt that I have that I'm looking at is how do I contribute to the lives of my friends? And then, what am I looking for in new friendships and how do I find them? As an adult, it's quite hard to make new friends, and it also can be hard to maintain quality friendships, especially if they don't necessarily live close to you or work near you or have an easy link to be able to see them. Like, what do I need to do to be able to make sure I'm nurturing those relationships so that if I need to ever call on them or if they ever need to call on me, that feels comfortable and like a first thought rather than an update later on and that's something that I've been through and I'll talk to you about it when I see you in six months time. Like, if you want the type of friendship that you're updating each other more often, how do you bring value to that? And so that's something that I want to be able to improve for myself in 2024 is really nurturing the friendships that I have, because I have incredible women in my life that I've had in my life since childhood and I know that I can be a better friend and a more present friend, and so I want to be able to bring that into 2024.
Speaker 1:And also I want to be able to make more friends in my industry who I can have industry chat with, who live a similar lifestyle to me working for themselves or working from home because there's certain ways that we can bounce off each other that I can't necessarily have that same conversation with. Even my longest friends, who are in different sorts of roles in corporate or in like teaching and things like that. I can have beautiful, incredible conversations with them around a lot of different topics, but if around work, there's only so deep that that conversation can go when you're across different industries, and I really do want to make some more industry friends, and so that's something that I've sat down and journaled on. I've also journaled on what do I want to learn more about and how do I do that. I'm really big on self development and whether that is reading or doing courses, I've made a list of different things that I want to learn more about that are going to help me grow, both as a coach and as a person, and journaling on that to work out exactly what I want to learn, but also like make a plan. What books do I need to read to achieve that? What courses do I need to do to achieve that? Start scheduling that in, or at least have that list so that anytime I finish off one I can move on to the next, and also making sure that when I'm doing that, I'm giving myself time to process and implement what it is that I'm learning. But that's part of my process Anyhow. I don't just read one book and then straight into the next without trying to implement it first, because that's sort of just consuming without being able to apply it. But that's a practice in itself too. And the last prompt that I have is what low vibe habits do I need to leave behind and replace?
Speaker 1:And I've noticed myself recently, since journaling on this, noticing myself when I'm doing different things around the house or when I'm behaving in certain ways that I go that's a low vibe behavior. And I try and find what's the high vibe behavior. So, for example, I was on the stairmaster the other day and I really wanted to get off at 10 minutes, or I wanted to get off before 10 minutes, like I was from eight minutes in. I was like this is torture, let me just get off this thing. But I was like that's low vibe behavior, complete the thing. How you do one thing is how you do everything, and so I got to 10 minutes. But I went to 10 minutes and 10 seconds because I was like I'm going to do things and I'm going to do them well and I'm going to make sure that they are complete, complete, not just get to 10 minutes and cut it off that very second, even though every part of me wanted to. I just want that little extra 10 seconds and I just go that little bit further. And so I noticed the little things like why I was going to leave the kitchen with a couple of plates in the sink before I went to bed the other night, and I'm like, nah, that's low vibe behavior. When I come out in the morning, I want a nice clean kitchen to come to, and so identifying what your low vibe behaviors are and cutting them off, replacing them with a high vibe version, which might only take an extra minute, but it lets you complete things in a way that is going to move you closer to the person that you want to be and living the life that you want to have, that brings high vibe behavior, and so I'm very big on, like you know, the energy that we put into things is going to come back in the energy, the things that come towards us. And so identifying what your low vibe behaviors are procrastination, cutting things short and just telling yourself now that's a low vibe behavior, and adapting that into the high vibe version I hope that hearing some of these journal prompts can give you a little bit of inspiration on things to journal on.
Speaker 1:Once again, you don't have to write a whole page answer. You don't even necessarily need to use a book. If it works better for you to put pen to paper, then that's great. If it works better for you to write all your prompts down in a note and fill that in and just revisit it every now and then maybe set a reminder in your phone that you look at it again at the end of the month or weekly or however. It's going to work for you that you can revisit these things throughout the year to ensure that you're staying aligned with who it is that you want to become in 2024. You are so much more likely to be that person towards the end of the year and be able to reflect back on 2024 and go like I actually did the shit that I said I was going to. I actually grew into the person who I wanted to become, and that once again right back to what I said at the very beginning.
Speaker 1:It's not necessarily just about setting end goals for things. Work out who it is you need to become to be able to achieve those end goals and make that part of your process. I'll end this episode there, and I hope that you were able to draw some sort of inspiration or take some notes on things that you are going to be able to journal on to be able to become your best self in 2024. If you have any feedback for this episode, you can reach me on Helena underscore underscore slide. That's also the best place to inquire for coaching.
Speaker 1:If you enjoy this episode enough to share it with a friend, that's also a great idea that you can get a buddy to be accountable with and maybe you can both check in with each other on your processes throughout the year. Maybe you have a little catch ups here and there to see if you're still aligned with that process. Having accountability to the goals that you set for yourself can make it a whole lot more likely that you'll stay on track as well. So I actually encourage you to share this episode with a friend. I'll leave that there. Thanks so much for tuning in. Until next time, much love.
