When I visited Colorado a few weeks ago, as I was driving to Boulder to meet a friend, I felt so peaceful, driving slowly on the back roads, enjoying watching the bikers in the bike lanes and giving them extra space as I passed. It was lovely.

When I’m in Houston, on the other hand, I’m a little bit of a maniac driver (not as crazy as some, but definitely not a picture of easeful driving 🤣). I’m on the defensive and offensive, not letting people in in traffic, getting so frustrated with slow drivers and fast drivers and anyone who stops me from getting where I’m going as quickly as possible (please don’t judge me…I’m being vulnerable here!).

But in Colorado, I adapted to the environment and circumstances. Colorado drivers are way more chill, and there’s a different energy on the roads.

It doesn’t hurt that this is what you get to stare at as you’re driving in Colorado.I definitely prefer to feel how I felt driving in Colorado than how I feel driving in Houston.

And yet, as soon as I got back to Houston, I turned back into a maniac driver.

___

There’s something to the concept of stepping away from your life for a moment to reflect and regroup. And you might be thinking, “but wait, Elaine, didn’t you just tell me last week that retreats don’t improve my well-being?” Yes and no.

Sometimes, you have to climb out of the bottle of your life to be able to read the label. You can’t read the label from inside. There are things in your life that may be driving you crazy or causing pain and suffering that you don’t recognize until you’ve removed yourself from the situation.

But then, eventually, you have to get back in the bottle, back into your life. And if you haven’t done anything to solidify what you learned outside of the bottle and implement those new practices into your real life, nothing is going to change. It was just a nice respite for a moment in time.

If you jump back into the same conditions that made you ill, frustrated, burnt out, or crazy without a plan for change, the peace and calm you experienced while away will disappear so fast, and you’ll be right back where you started.

You can’t heal in the same environment that created the illness. Something has to change, and if you can’t change your environment, you have to change something in or about yourself.

For me, I’m grateful to have had a health coaching session while I was away to help me reprioritize what is important in my life right now. I planned out (and have since implemented) a morning routine that sets me up for a focused and productive day. It includes some practices for me (meditation, gratitude, alignment practices) and some stuff for my business (health news and research, business development, and writing). And by making time for the things that nourish my body, mind, and soul, I get in the car every day less stressed and more patient and gracious.

​Whether you’ve been able to step away from real life recently or it’s been a while, reflect on what it felt like and how you can bring more of that energy (patient, calm, inspired, content, joyfully expectant) into your daily life. Because your health and well-being aren’t about the big fancy things you do for yourself once in a blue moon; it’s about how you take care of yourself every single day.

When I was in high school, I would go to the YMCA to work out at night.

When I was in college, I would get up at 5:00am and go to the gym before early morning classes.

When I was a teacher, I would go for a walk or swim after school.

In the past two years, since I’ve had a little bit more flexibility in my mornings, I got my workouts done in the morning.

But now I’m back to trying afternoon workouts because I realized that morning workouts drain my energy before I’ve done anything else in the day!

So when is the BEST time to exercise?

​The New York Times recently published an article reporting on research done in Australia with a group of 30,000 adults with obesity that claimed the best time to exercise was at night to decrease the risk of death from any cause.

But a different study found that morning exercise is best for heart health and weight loss.

And yet another study said afternoon workouts are best for athletes.

So the best time to exercise? When you’re actually going to do it!

There is no one-size-fits-all solution for anything in life. And there’s likely no solution that is going to work for you for your entire life.

Annoying, I know.

The best way to eat? Low fat, high fat, low carb, high carb, gluten-free, paleo, keto, intermittent fasting, intuitive eating, vegan, no limits. There’s a reason why all these diets exist. Because some piece of research has shown that they were effective for the participants in the study.

The optimal amount of sleep? 8 hours? Think again. Some people need much more, and some people don’t need that much. And it changes as we age.

The perfect job conditions? Work remotely for flexibility, work in person for community, part-time, full-time, big salary and few benefits, lower salary with great benefits. Some people want a job that’s extremely fulfilling, others just show up for the paycheck.

So instead of looking out at the world for the answer to your health and lifestyle challenges, why not go inward and figure out what you want and what’s going to work for you, in the body you have, with the family and friends that surround you, and lifestyle you want to cultivate?

​The best way to be is the way that you can live in congruence with your values and goals. So stop looking outward and trust that you know what’s best for you, and then go do it.

When I was younger, I hated people telling me what to do, especially when it came to fitness. Team sports? No thanks! Fitness classes? Nope. I chose to play softball because it involved the least amount of physical effort of all the sports I’d tried (in my opinion).

In high school, I would go run 3 miles before softball practice, but when the coach made us run 5 foul poles at the end of practice, I was huffing and puffing, not from being out of breath but from being pissed that someone was telling me to run.

For years, I wanted to plan my own workouts. But then I kind of stopped because it was a lot of mental effort to figure out a whole workout multiple times a week! Two years ago, I reprioritized strength training and surrendered to group fitness classes because I found myself struggling to motivate myself to do strength training. And it’s actually been pretty great! I’ve benefited from going to classes where the teacher plans the whole thing and I just have to show up.

But last week, I noticed some of that rebellion emerge (and realized I’ve been doing this since the beginning, unknowingly sabotaging myself).

I was in a Pilates class and noticed some resistance to what the instructor was telling us to do. I was changing the moves to make them easier or stopping altogether, partly because it was hard but more because I was feeling annoyed with the moves the teacher had chosen for us, and I was acting out. When I caught myself doing this, I realized that me not doing the move doesn’t affect the teacher. They don’t care whether or not I do it. The only person it’s affecting is me, and it’s not in line with my fitness goals to not do the exercises I’m going to the classes to do.

I find this to be true with a lot of things related to health. A lot of times, we know what we need to do, especially when people tell us what to do. We resist simply because we don’t want people to tell us what to do. This doesn’t help us reach our goals or live in alignment with our values because what we value is living healthfully and optimally.

Other times, what people tell us to do truly doesn’t work for us. At least once per class, I do have to modify a move because of my tailbone injury or my back (related to the tailbone thing) or my bad knees, and I know that what I’m doing is right for me because I know my body best.


So I guess it’s all about balance — being open to learning and growing and knowing that you are the expert on your body, your health, your life.


Takeaways

1. What worked for you once may not work for you now. It’s okay (and necessary) to change.
2. You likely have all the knowledge you need to change your life and health. You just have to put it into action.
3. Not doing is a choice just as much as doing is. Think about your recent choices around your health and well-being. Are you doing it for you? Are you not doing it because of someone else? What would change if you blocked out the external noise and acted fully in alignment with your goals and vision for your life?

Health coaching is the bridge between knowing something and actually doing it. What can you commit to doing this week to move you closer to your optimal health and well-being?

Imagine you’re applying for jobs and you get an offer for your dream job $20,000 a year. Would you take it? Heck no!


But wait. What if they give away free Astros tickets to employees and have a lounge stocked with unlimited drinks and snacks? And they have blowout parties throughout the year that people rave about. Would you take it now? Still, heck no!

Why? Because you can’t survive on $20,000 a year and snacks and Astros tickets.


It’s the same with our health. We have to give ourselves a living wage for health-supporting behaviors before we focus on adding in all those extra special things. Sure, those things are fun, but you can’t survive off of them.

You have to “pay” yourself enough through a healthful lifestyle — nourishing your body with movement, whole foods, quality sleep, positive relationships, and purposeful activities — to be able to feel satisfied and fulfilled in your life. When you don’t, you feel depleted, frustrated, aimless, hopeless, sick, achy, overwhelmed.

No matter what you throw at it — a spa day, a weekend away, a wellness retreat, a movie night —, it won’t cancel out the missing pieces.

When we have foundational wellness, we’re not living for the exercise and vegetables, are we? (I mean, maybe some people are, but I’m certainly not….) They’re not invigorating and exciting in the moment. But when you are well, those bonuses of a really special bath or a massage can take your life experience to a whole new level.

​The first step has to be getting your health foundations dialed in. Movement, nourishing food, quality sleep, an orderly environment, mental well-being, purposeful activities, community, and mindfulness.

Did you see the northern lights this past weekend?


I didn’t. Oh well. It can be easy to get sucked into the hype of all the things happening in the world around us. With the media these days, we’re so much more aware of EVERYTHING we should and shouldn’t be doing, hearing, seeing, buying.

It is so easy to be influenced these days. You start to feel out of control with how you’re spending your attention, time, and money. FOMO (the fear of missing out) is a real mental phenomenon that can zap our life satisfaction if we let it.​

When there is something coming up every single week (or maybe every single day) that is a “once-in-a-lifetime,” “can’t miss” event, it can all just get to be TOO. FREAKING. MUCH. (How I’m feeling lately…lol)

So how do we stop the fear and guilt of missing out on all these incredible experiences?​

Well, there will always be more to do. More to see. More to experience. That’s the beauty of life. You have an enormous buffet of choices you get to choose from. You get to CHOOSE. External circumstances don’t control your choices. You control what you bring into our lives.​

AND remember that how we spend our day-to-day life is much more impactful for our health and well-being than chasing moments of elation and excitement. Of course those add value, but if you’re not content, not fulfilled, not feeling well daily, these once-in-a-lifetime events aren’t going to fix your life.

Of course I felt disappointed for like, a minute, that I was going to be sleeping when the northern lights were visible, but once I forgot about it, did it matter? Not to me.

So what are you choosing to spend your time and attention on this week?​

For me, it’s getting organized and starting to plan our next online event (stay tuned for something good!) and getting back into my exercise routine and meal planning after a week and a half away in Colorado.​

I would love to hear what you’re choosing this week! Comment and let me know :)

Starting down a new path on your health and wellness journey isn’t easy. It’s usually precipitated by a challenging time — either yours or seeing someone else’s.


For me, it was both. My dad got sick and at the same time I was experience serious burnout and discontentment with my life. As I’ve worked to improve my life and health so I can live well not only now but for decades to come, I’ve learned some lessons that keep me in the right frame of mind to keep going, no matter what.

1. Health is THE thing that makes all other things possible. It’s not just ‘another thing to do.’ When you recognize that taking care of your health is a foundational component of your lifestyle rather than an item on a checklist, the mental gymnastics stop and you just do it.
   
   
2. Health and wellness is a lifelong journey. The pursuit never ends. There will never be a time when you don’t need to exercise anymore or get enough sleep or stay involved with your community or eat your vegetables. So when you focus on changing making changes, choose things you actually want to do and can do for a long time because there’s no end point (except death).
   
   
3. You are the expert in your health and life. How many times have you consulted a professional or read a book or asked someone for advice, only to not follow through because it just wouldn’t work for you? I would dare to bet that you have at least 80% of the information you need to radically transform your life right now. Instead of learning more, you need to learn to trust your intuition and harness what you already know.
   
   
4. You have to change your life if you want your life to change. You can wish all you want, but if you don’t do anything about it, nothing is going to happen.
   
   
5. Choosing health means not choosing something else. This may be an unpopular opinion, but you DO have give up some things to enhance your health and well-being. You can’t have it both ways. But I promise you that the sacrifice is worth it because the life and health that’s waiting for you on the other side is so much more expansive than what you’re experiencing right now.
   
   
6. Knowledge does not apply itself. You have to apply it! To keep learning — reading, researching, watching — is a protection mechanism. It’s easier than actually taking action, failing, learning, and trying again. Or best case scenario, you succeed the first time! But knowledge ≠ transformation.
   
   
7. Putting others before yourself is selfish; taking care of yourself is the actual selfless act. Taking care of yourself is more challenging because it is WORK. It’s easier to neglect yourself and just do things for other people all the time than it is to make a commitment to yourself, do the work, and set boundaries with others. I’m not saying you completely give up on other people; I’m saying you take care of yourself first and then give what you have left to others. In the long run, your loved ones will thank you because you’ll be healthier, more independent, and able to keep helping others instead of relying on someone to take care of you.
   
   
8. Waiting for motivation is a waste of time. You have to get into action, and motivation will follow. Have you ever had a project that you procrastinated on because you just didn’t want to do it, but as the deadline approached and you got into it, it wasn’t so bad and you were able to make progress? This can happen with any health behavior that you want to start, except there’s no deadline and thus no motivation to get started so you never get started. If you are sitting on your couch waiting for motivation to strike before you get back to the gym or find a healthy dinner recipe, you’re going to be sitting there for a long time. You have to get yourself to take a step forward, and the motivation will follow.
   
   
9. You are the only one who can do it for you. No one else can or wants to do it for you because everyone has their own stuff to work on. You are the only one who can make the commitment and make the changes necessary to finally experience the life and health you desire. So what are you waiting for?

Which one resonates most with you? Leave a comment below!

This morning, I was working the front desk at the fitness studio I work at part-time when a mom with a toddler came in looking disheveled and exhausted. They were at a storytelling event next door and she saw the studio on her way to the car. She asked about classes and schedules and memberships with a sense of excitement and desperation. She said she was going to try to come back for a class two hours later.


As the start time of said class approached, people started trickling in, but she didn’t. I thought, Oh no, please let her make it and have this time for herself.

She ended up running in one minute before class started, just in time.

After class, as I got her checked out, I noticed her energy was lighter. She said she was so happy to have made it happen, but she wouldn’t be able to commit to more classes, since she had her toddler at home with her most days.

Today, the stars aligned for her — she was motivated, she had someone to watch her daughter, she saw that we were open and there was a class time that worked. AMAZING!

And yet, I wonder how long those good feelings lasted. Maybe through tonight or until tomorrow. Maybe they were zapped as soon as she walked through the door back home. For her sake, I hope it was longer.

Now, I hope this doesn’t sound patronizing. I’m trying to paint a picture for you of a situation I’m sure most of you have been in at one point or another. I certainly have. Where people and responsibilities require so much of you that you don’t get to do anything for yourself. Where you don’t even recognize what you’re sacrificing until maybe it’s too late.

What if you didn’t have to wait for the motivation to get started or for the stars to align in order to do something for your health and yourself? How would that change your health? Your relationships? Your life?

There are always going to be excuses. You can always insert things into your life that make it so you don’t have the time to exercise or the brain capacity to meal plan or the money to invest in a therapist or coach or…or…or….

​So you have to choose what’s most important to you. Then you commit to it. And then you take action. And when you make that commitment, you can come up with solutions that are (mostly) excuse-proof (…some people are REALLY good at making excuses).


If you are ready to commit to your priorities and change your health and life, you’re in the right place. I have a 5-Day Resolution Restart 2024 starting on January 29, and I’d love for you to be my guest! We’ll be live on Zoom talking about your vision of optimal health, creating goals, and putting them into action. Info and register here.

I’ve had a slow start to the year compared to 2023. While I didn’t set intentions in 2023 (see my previous article about this), I hit the ground running as soon as I got back from my holiday trip to visit my parents in Colorado and I rannn for months. It was fun and exciting!

This year (2024), despite creating resolutions and goals, I struggled a bit to get going. Anyone else?

*Just a reminder here that comparison is the thief of joy! Whether you’re comparing yourself to yourself or to other people, it’s really not helpful and takes you away from the present moment of your life.

ANYWAYS

I’ve found inspiration in the past few days— from hearing about some great wins from clients to settling back into my daily routines — I’m ready to go.

(Also, we’re only 12 days into the new year, so “calm down Elaine,” I know!)

One thing I know to be true is that waiting for the “motivation” to get started never gets me what I want. In the past, I have been stuck for days, weeks, or months waiting for motivation to strike, and that has left me at the whim of circumstance to dictate how I get to live and what happens to me.

So, instead of waiting for motivation, I know I just have to move. Take action first, and momentum and motivation builds to keep me going.

This happened in my own health journey. A couple of years ago, I was sparked into action when my dad got sick, and I realized I needed to be taking better care of myself. As I began to eat better, prioritize sleep, exercise, and find belonging in a spiritual community, I found myself in an upward spiral towards feeling better, each change leading to motivation to do the next, and the next, and the next.

By improving my health, I gained the confidence and clarity I needed to make some big changes in my life to realign with my purpose. Over the next six months, I

• ended a 2.5-year relationship that was fine but wasn’t aligned with my long-term goals (which I’d known for a while but didn’t have the confidence to leave).
• decided to move on to my next career, knowing I had accomplished all I could in the place I was. I knew that my desire to grow needed to be nurtured, and it was okay to strive for more.
• moved out of an apartment that had been home for five years in search of new energy.

It didn’t all happen at once. It wasn’t easy. And it wasn’t serendipitous. This transformation took hard work, intention, and consistent forward action.

I recently conducted a market research survey for overwhelmed, purpose-driven women who are seeking harmony between their desire to make a difference in the world and their need to nourish their own body, mind, and soul without guilt. In response to the question, “What do you think you need in order to see a positive shift in your struggle areas?”, so many women said that they need to see results, progress, some wins…

But how are you going to see results if you’re waiting to make a change until you see results? Yes, we need to see results to prove to ourselves that we can actually do it, and the only way that’ll happen is by starting anyway. Regardless of whether circumstances are perfect or the time is “right” or you are totally motivated. You just have to get started.

So how do you get yourself to take that first action when you’re not motivated? Connecting to your motivation to change (not your motivation to go to the gym or eat the vegetable), coming up with a foolproof plan for you, and setting up accountability for yourself so you can’t not do it! More on that next week.

​In the meantime, if you are ready to set the direction of your life and health and prepare for action, check out my free, 5-day masterclass — Resolution Restart 2024 — from January 29-February 2. I’ll be live with you in Zoom every day, getting you set up with manageable, actionable resolutions that’ll transform your health and life. Sign up here.

I’ve been hesitant to share with my clients and networks about my New Year’s “resolutions”. It seems that “resolutions” have gotten a bad rap in recent years. The messages I receive are that they’re meaningless, they don’t actually help people make changes, 92% of people fail at their resolutions, everyone gives up in the first few days of January…blah blah blah. And I was letting this message get to me. If I’m a health coach, I guess I shouldn’t be telling people about my resolutions and telling them to make their own if they don’t work.


But I’m calling BS. Because “resolutions” have worked for me in the past. And they can work for you too.

I put “resolutions” in quotes because I think we all have a different idea of what that means, and the types of “resolutions” that fail may not be the types of “resolutions” I’m talking about that can work.

If we think about where that word comes from, we’re talking about resolving to do something. Making a decision with determination to accomplish what we set out to do.

For me, the distinction between the resolutions that fail and those that don’t is intention versus commitment.

An intention is an aim or an idea. It seems that many people set intentions for the new year — that is, they come up with ideas for their year. Dreaming about what it’d be like to exercise more, lose 20 pounds, see friends and family more, try new foods, make more money, find more fulfillment, be more present, quit *insert unhealthy habit here*.

And there is ABSOLUTELY a time and place for intention setting. If you want to change your life, that’s where you start. You have to know what you want so you can ask for it. But that’s not where it ends. Or actually, that is where it ends if you stop there.

But if you really want your life to change, you have to change your life, not just your ideas.

A commitment, on the other hand, is a decision to dedicate and restrict your time to actually doing your resolution. You create a plan, make it specific and measurable, and add in accountability to make sure you follow through. And then you do it.

Now, it’s not as easy as one-two-three, but you’ll be a lot more likely to follow through when you decide you’re actually going to do something (not just wouldn’t it be nice…) and have a plan of action.

So back to the New Year’s part — at what other point in your life are you sitting down and intentionally designing your life? Choosing what you want and making commitments to get it? Why not use the New Year to make it happen? It’s as good a time as any.

Use the energy of the collective consciousness of billions of people who have agreed on the calendar that says January 1 is a time for new beginnings, and begin anew.

​I wish you all the success, growth, and happiness in 2024. Happy New Year!

Recently, I had the opportunity to participate in a group coaching program about stress. It was a four-week program where we learned about stress, what it does to the body, and how to manage it better.


In one of our sessions, the coach asked what our biggest source of stress was, and immediately, I thought about school. I’m in grad school getting a master’s degree in Integrative Health, and it has been a journey. I’ve finished 4/5 trimesters and have taken a variety of classes — some that I’ve loved and some I just had to get through.

In one of our group sessions, the coach asked us what we could do to manage our stress, and I immediately thought about the end of my grad program — I have one trimester left, and being able to see the light at the end of the tunnel is a relief. I thought, “I’ll just wait it out. When I graduate, I won’t be stressed anymore!”

Yeah right. I’m one of those people who always finds something to stress out about…anyone else?

In this reflection, I realized that the source of my stress is rarely, if ever, external. (I say this recognizing my privilege that all my basic needs are met and I am safe. Not everyone has the same experience). Nothing outside of me causes me stress — my job, school, my relationships, money…. I make it all up in my mind.

What has caused me so much stress around my schoolwork has been procrastination and the pressure I put on myself to be perfect. When I put pressure on myself to do something perfectly, I put it off, usually because I’m afraid to fail. The longer I put it off, the more I build up the task in my mind to be insurmountable, time-consuming, massive, overwhelming. And then I stress as the deadline approaches and I have a behemoth of a task to complete.

And this doesn’t just happen with my school work. I also do this my coaching business. And in reaching out to friends and making plans. And taking care of adulting things.

But when I finally get to the task, 9 times out of 10, it’s not that bad.

I think one of the most powerful ways for me to overcome this destructive cycle of procrastination and stress has been a consistent mindfulness practice. Meditating 10–15 minutes per day helps me be aware of the thoughts that lead to procrastination, which helps me move through them into action.

Other ways I’ve been able to manage stress are spending time outdoors (nature is sooo healing for me!), moving my body, and getting enough quality sleep every night.

​So, what causes you the most stress in your life? And what can you do to manage it better so you can experience a little more Easeful Living?