In 2018, Merriam Webster added a new word to the established dictionary: healthspan. While many of us focus on lifespan and awareness of the average years of age people live, how many consider just how many of those years are healthy? This is your healthspan.
As one year draws to an end and another begins, we are often motivated to set goals, to assess where we went right and where we went wrong in the last year and what we’d like to accomplish in the new one. There is an issue with this that may create a pattern, and the pattern may not be one of success. And… I think it has a lot to do with how we define motivation.
In setting goals, many believe that the goal, itself, is the motivation. “I want to do XYZ this year.” There you have it. Right? But that’s just a statement. Having a goal is quite different than a statement. Goals have direction and a pathway carved not out of intention, but action. That direction is in the now, not in the future. Motivation is something you are actively pursuing, not what you would like to do.
Most of us function from believing that direction is futuristic in nature. Afterall, we can point, quite literally, to a direction. “There it is. Over there! That’s where I want to go!” But, is that where you are headed? Heading somewhere takes action. It takes momentum. Movement. Energy. Pointing out where you want to go, remembering where you have been, perhaps even with regrets, gets you nowhere until you accept where you are today and that it will take more action than pointing out where you would like to go, literally and figuratively.
How do you get there? Plans are nothing until they become the action. Sure, take time to plan, but embrace where you are and what you are doing now to be somewhere else in the next moment. Rather than only looking at where you’d like to go, what you’d like to become, what you used to have, what you can’t do anymore, how you’ve changed, etc., etc., and so on, get moving, doing something now.
If your motivation is to get moving, for God sakes, move! I once told a friend of ours that I had a great exercise plan. It was formulated after the old Body for Life (Phillips) book with three days of exercise, say, M-W-F with upper, lower, upper body weights and exercises followed by lower, upper, lower body weights and exercises the following week. Back in 2007, I actually lost 26 pounds despite gaining quite a bit of muscle. The days in-between, T-Th-Sat involved walking or aerobic exercise. Each exercise or aerobic session was only 30 minutes long. The seventh day was a day of rest.
But what I told our friend was quite revealing. I said, if I got off track, if I didn’t start the week out right on Monday, then my plan was all screwed up. I’d even end up subconsciously thinking I should wait until the following Monday to get started again. How ridiculous! But it was true.
I did this plan for 14 weeks straight until I had what I refer to as “the dreaded flip-flop injury.” Yes. Going down three measly steps into my studio, I tripped on a flip flop. A flip flop I was wearing, that is. I almost landed on a maltese I was puppy-sitting, too. I can still see her little face with black lips looking up at me, frantically running to get out of my way as I looked down and saw my other foot land like I was tip-toing. The only thing was: my foot stayed planted and my body moved forward, hyperextending my big toe back toward the top of my foot. Football players call it turf toe.
Perhaps it was stupid, but I did not seek medical care for that. Rather, I placed my foot in a motorcycle boot, like a cast, and hobbled around for a long time. That was 16 years ago. I don’t know why, but about 6 years ago, I had similar pain and swelling in the other foot on the same joint. Odd. It has taken me years, through gradual stretching in yoga to have zero-pain, without overdoing it, in either foot and continued ability to rotate my foot farther and yes, go up on my tippy-toes, as I call it. Things can and often do get better.
My point here is not all of these details, obviously, but that we can be our own “worst enemy” in setting up expectations or parameters. (Couldn’t I do on a Tuesday what I may have wanted to do on a Monday? What was stopping me? A plan? The inability to know how to adjust the plan?)
I have another confession to make: I hate to be that person in the gym the first week of January. I actually think that others are judging me. “Here she is. One of many people who start their resolutions only to fail.” Is that ridiculous or what? I am tempted not to exercise in a gym in early January (other than in my own home) for appearing to be… what? A failure in the making?
I can tell you right now: I am not a failure and neither are you. Accepting that we are human is a start as long as it is not an excuse. It’s okay to go “into” your mind and that your mind sometimes takes over with ridiculous scenarios, schemes that not only don’t work, but hurt us. It’s not okay to be judgmental of yourself even though it happens. This is where lifestyle changes can make a big difference. Lifestyle changes that set up strategies of action; real action, not conceived intention of action, are what you and I need. Shoot for your best healthspan no matter your lifespan as long as “shooting” for it is actively doing something today—not tomorrow—not Monday. And who cares what others think of you. Or what you think others think of you. Others are entitled to think whatever they want. Don’t end up harming yourself worrying about what others may or may not think!
You have what you need to be happy. No matter what life throws at you. Choose happiness. Choose community. Choose spirituality. Choose prayer and meditation. Choose healthy foods that do not contain poisons. Choose to rest. Chose to move your body and appreciate it. Choose to decide how to spend your time and who to spend it with. Choose to be grateful and kind to yourself and others. Choose love.
This world needs you. You are important, and you matter. Happy New Year.
🙂
Mind Set Go 
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