EP39 Plan like a human, not a robot
In this episode, we dive into the Build Your Plan step of the VIBE Method and break down how to create a realistic, sustainable health plan that actually works in real life. You’ll learn the four essentials of effective habit-building:
starting small
planning for the season of life you’re in
pairing new habits with existing routines
practicing real self-kindness instead of self-criticism
If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by health goals, stuck in all-or-nothing thinking, or frustrated when plans fall apart, this episode gives you a grounded, flexible approach you can use right away. Tune in to learn how to build a health plan that supports your goals, your energy, and your actual life.
Sometimes you just want to read, so here’s a transcript for you:
Hello and welcome back to the new episode of the Wellness Ninja Podcast. I am your host, Heather. And I am so excited to be back in your ear holes.
Welcome, welcome, welcome. If you're new, we are in the middle of a little bit of a podcast mini series. Working through the different parts of the VIBE method. V-I-B-E that I use with my clients to help them improve their health and achieve their goals. And today we are focusing in on the B in VIBE. Which is about building your plan.
So if you haven't listened to the first couple episodes in this series, one is vision. This is where we got clarity on what your real goal is. One that is not based on circumstances. One that is based on a feeling or feelings in this case. We kind of focused in on finding out what our three feelings are. That episode came with a nice little handy dandy PDF that you can use to help figure out what your goal feelings are. So again, go back and check that out. The second episode we talked about identifying the blocks in your way. And how the blocks we think are the blocks are usually not the real blocks. They're just the surface level of what is kind of getting in our way. And how a lot of the key to looking at our blocks is to stop looking at them one dimensionally. And instead look at them from multiple points of view. Which would include physical, mental, emotional, and energetic. And when you can look at a problem in all four of those areas, you start to get at way more of the root cause. And then you actually start to clear it out instead of something that just re-pops up. Again, I go into that in the identify episode, which was last week's episode. It's pretty decent. Go back and listen if you haven't already.
And today we're going to talk about building your plan of action moving forward. Because now you've got clarity, how you want to feel. You kind of have some information about what's in the way and different ways of looking at it. And one key thing here I want to mention is that the vibe method is a method. It's not a four-step plan where you do the V, then the I, then the B, then the E. This isn't like a sequential order thing. I'm presenting them in a sequential order because it kind of makes sense. But we're always working on all of them. And this is especially true for the I, the identify, and working with blocks. That's lifetime work. We're always working on that. And even the vision of how we want to feel, that can change with different seasons of our life and different things that happen. An event could happen and it could change what our goal feelings are. So I just want to mention that. This is definitely not like a follow this four-step program and you will feel amazing and your life will be awesome and you'll lose 100 pounds and everything will work out for you. I would be a bajillionaire if that was really true. That's not how life works. Most of you know that I am very real in that health is a direction, not a destination. You don't just get healthy and then you stay there and that's it and everything's hunky-chunky.
That's such a dad expression, hunky-chunky. My dad used to say that all the time. It's a very weird expression.
But everything isn't great and good because we've arrived at this destination of health. Most of us know that life happens and so health is a direction. And I actually find it very liberating to think of it that way because then I'm never not there. I'm always directionally moving that way. And that feels a lot lighter than like I have to get there and I have to get there now. Let's jump into today and most of us do want to jump right into this step of build right away and start making our action plan and color-coding our calendar. Oh my god, the joy of the new colored pens and the new planner and we color-code everything and we make it just so, oh, it's just like such a dopamine hit. That's not where you start, guys. Those things are nice. I'm a stationary gal, don't get me wrong. That is much like identifying the blocks. That's a superficial plan.
So again, the key part to making a plan is getting clarity on your vision, aka the feelings you're wanting, starting to explore the things getting in your way. And now we start to make the plan and the key about this is this is not about making a plan that's like a perfect plan or the 10 shoulds or all the things that we're supposed to be doing or the five-step morning routine that changes your day and like all that stuff. Those are just ideas of things that might help you.
Building a plan is about choosing a few simple actions that will fit your life and move you towards your desired feeling. And the key to this is to think of it as a real-life experiment of try, assess, adjust. Every action is designed to reinforce the vision you have for your life, not punish you for not being there yet.
And it's interesting, so many people make these health plans or life plans and if you really look at them, there's like so much punishment in it. Like, oh, I have excess weight, I got to do this and this and I got to restrict that and I got like stringent plans and there's this real punishment until I get to my goal and then once I get my goal, I don't have to punish myself anymore. That like punishment is not sustainable.
It'll last for a little bit but it's not sustainable and it's not fucking enjoyable, that's for sure. And things that are not enjoyable, we don't continue to do guys. So building a plan, there are four parts that I think are key. There's a lot of parts but here's the four I'm going to talk about today. I can't talk about everything in these podcasts. They are start small, live in your season, partner up and be kind to yourself.
Get excited. All right, let's dive into them a little bit, right? Remember, I'm probably going to say this in every podcast episode but I can't get into the depths of all of these in a simple podcast episode, especially with like nobody talking back at me and asking questions. Like the good stuff comes with the questions which is why working together is so much fun and can be really beneficial.
So I'm hitting at the top level keys of these but I want you to start thinking about them and maybe I'll say something that triggers a different way for you to view these things, a different way for you to push these things and that is awesome. That's my goal. So number one, the number one key that I mentioned was start small.
Whatever you think small is, I want you to think even smaller. I heard this great expression from another coach I had worked with and she used to say small hinges swing big doors. And I fucking love that.
You will not find giant hinges on big doors. You will find small hinges on big doors because that's all you need to open them. And so we tend to think that we need to take big action.
We need to change everything. We need to have like a, you know, go from doing nothing to now I work out seven days a week for an hour every day. Some of you have tried that.
You can tell me how that went for you in the long term. The other part about starting small is that like we're talking about like a action you can take, not a project. And what do I mean by that is that I see a lot of people taking a project and writing it down as an item on a to-do list.
So workout. Actually, workout is a project. It consists of many steps and many small actions in many parts.
We need to break it down to those smaller parts. So if it's like, oh, I need to work out every day. Okay, well, let's break that down.
That means I need to schedule time every day. That's step one. Two, I need to know what I'm going to be doing that day.
Three, I need to have the equipment for it. Four, I need to have the knowledge. Like there's all these steps and parts to it.
And that includes like when you're going from like I'm not doing anything to now I'm going to do a whole bunch of things. You're missing steps there along the way. You're trying to jump ahead in line.
That's not going to work for you. You're going to end up injured. You're going to end up disappointed.
You're going to end up giving up. And then when you give up, you're going to stop believing that you can achieve these things that you want to achieve. I'm using, you know, working out and health and stuff.
But like this applies to all your life. This is with all your goals. I see so many people like, okay, you know, my project, my goal this weekend is I got to clean my house.
That's not an action. Clean your house is not a to-do. Clean your house is a project full of 50,000 to-dos.
So pick which to-dos you're going to do. Here's where it gets tricky, though, with the human brain, is that your brain is going to try to convince you that you need big grand changes and not small changes. Your brain is going to tell you, oh, that's small changes for other people.
I need to make a big change or nothing's going to change at all. And I'm here to tell you that's your ego, folks. That's your ego saying, I need to make a big grand gesture that everyone can see and is really obvious and feels really fucking hard.
And then I'll know that I'm doing it and I'm making the change I want. That's just your ego. It's going to tell you that smaller is dumb.
But, like, even if you look at nature, see what made the Grand Canyon wasn't a big giant wave. What made the Grand Canyon was a gentle trickle of water over time. What makes crevices is drips of water over a long time, not one big giant gush of water.
The small actions literally move mountains. These small things done consistently over time. The problem is it's unsexy and it's unfun and it takes time.
I totally get it. I totally get it. But if it worked a different way, we would do it.
That's why, you know, people have these big. Like, I don't want to I don't want to talk negative about things like 75 hard, but I'm going to use 75 hard as an example. I know a lot of people who have done that.
And, you know, while they were doing it, they felt amazing like they were really pushing themselves. But if I talk to them six months later, what did it actually do for them? There's not a lot of long term gains from it. And then they have to they're like, well, I just need to do another one.
I think that there's benefit to it. But if you think it's the benefit is the long term gains and they're going to sustain that forever. You're fooling yourself.
I think there's different, particularly mental aspects of it that really can teach you a lot about yourself. And you can gain a lot of confidence in yourself doing a challenge like that. So I'm not against it, but it's never going to outplay small daily changes.
And that. If you are overwhelmed by something, if you're looking at something that you want to do and it feels overwhelming, you've made it too big. You need to make it smaller.
You need to make the action step small enough that it doesn't feel overwhelming. So if that means that working out overwhelms you, the small step can actually be that you put your workout shoes on and you wear them. Don't got to work out.
It's got to put your workout shoes on. That habit for a week. Two weeks.
Then you move on to the next part of it and you need to add another action step and another action step. And it will feel really slow in the day to day. But when you look back six months from now, now you've added and added and added and added.
And six months from now, now you're working out every day. And you're thinking, oh my God, that just started with me putting my shoes on because you got in the habit. It's funny the timing of this because literally I'm working with a coach right now to try to improve my own personal fitness.
And immediately she was like, okay, well, we're going to work on consistency. And here's the things you're going to do for it. And I like dry heaved guys.
I was like, give me the hard workout. Give me the I'm going to do lift these weights and do this thing. And she's like, no, like we're just going to do this small, simple thing consistently every day until it's a habit for you.
And I was like, I even mean knowing this and I'm doing this goddamn podcast about it. I was like, no. And I had to like really sit with that reaction.
One of the things I'm getting better and better at is like when I have that kind of a strong reaction that I like, it does cause my brain to pause and go what's going on here. And that was my ego saying, you're a health coach, Heather. You can't just start with these small, simple things.
And I was like, Hmm, you're a health coach, Heather. That's exactly what you're going to start with. Cause that's exactly what you would have anybody else start with.
Okay. So that starts small. That's key.
Number one key. Number two. Oh, this is a gutter.
And I think it's one that people forget. And that is to live in your season. And I borrowed this concept from Kendra Adachi.
She is the lazy genius. She has the lazy genius podcast. It is so freaking good.
You guys listen to it. She has a number of books, the lazy genius books. And one of the principles of being a lazy genius, which is where you are genius about the things that matter to you.
And you're lazy about everything else. It's fantastic read. I'm not doing it justice.
But one of her concepts is to live in your season. And this is when people just ignore it. And it can be the difference between moving towards your goals and completely being blindsided or setting yourself up for failure.
And this is the idea that life is full of seasons. And when we make our plans, health plans or life plans based on the season, we wish we were in rather than the one we're actually in. We set ourselves up to spectacularly fail.
And so an example of this would be if you are a mom to a newborn. And you say to yourself, okay, like, I know. I just need to wake up early every day to get my workout in.
And your season is that your baby does not sleep through the night. You're up often in the night. And if you get up early every day, you will not get enough sleep.
You're setting yourself up for failure. This is not the season where getting up early is a smart, helpful choice for you. And we have all these kinds of seasons in our lives, depending on what our job situation is, what our actual physical health situation is, the health of family members, the age of our children, the stage of what they're in.
In my house, we have sports seasons for our kids that we are much busier than other seasons. We have one driver, one non-driver. So as those seasons change and as the youngest becomes a driver, our seasons change.
And so our plan changes seasonally and not just weather seasonally. I mean, what is our family season? Our plan changes. And that's a good thing.
If you have the same freaking plan all year round, I just cannot grasp that because there's no way your life is the same all year round. And so you need to plan for your season and keep reassessing your plan. Third key, partner up.
And while I do think having an actual partner when you're hitting fitness goals, whether that's someone to work out with or a meal plan with or someone to just have accountability with, I think that's super awesome and super important. But that's not what I'm talking about. I am talking about partnering a new habit with an old habit.
It's way easier to grow a good habit that you already have than to start a new one from scratch. Some examples of this are take something that you already do, like brush your teeth, and add a habit that you want to start doing to that. So you partner them together.
Like I just brush my teeth now. I don't even think about it. It's just something I do twice a day every day.
So if I want to implement some breathing or I want to implement certain movements or I want to implement meditation or anything like that, I pair it. One of the best ways to do it is I pair it with teeth brushing. So I brush my teeth.
Now I do this new thing. And I will literally put a note where my toothbrush is to remind myself, oh, right, I do this new thing with brushing my teeth. And it's the trigger for it.
I know a lot of people who are trying to take more moments of pause and a deep breath. So when they walk through a doorway, that's what they do. Or when they're at a red light, they have certain things that they do.
So you're pairing them together with something that you're already doing. If you already make meals, now you're going to be like, okay, every day I make supper for my family. When I'm doing that, I also am prepping my lunch for the next day.
And it sounds really simple. Like, yeah, of course we do that. The amount of times we don't do that and we just add that activity to our to-do list at some point makes it seem so freaking overwhelming.
And the whole goal of this is to make this not overwhelming. So we partner things together. Think of something that you can partner with a habit or some action that you already take daily.
And it is so much easier. Okay. The final key, I think, in building your plan is being really kind to yourself.
And this kind of relates to the knowing your season. Because when our season changes, especially when that's unexpectedly, we can be really mean to ourselves and think, oh, I just can't stick to a plan. And if you are kind to yourself and you focus on that kindness and you take a moment and a breath and ask yourself some really key questions, like, is the problem the plan or is the new problem that my season has changed? I wasn't expecting that.
I need to adjust my plan. Maybe not make a new plan, but I need to adjust my plan that supports my season. Is my plan the problem or do I just need better supports? Do I need some help? Can I invite some help into this? Do I just need to talk to somebody about this and get a new perspective? When we ask ourselves these sort of kinder questions, we're going to get such better answers.
They're going to be so much more helpful than what's wrong with me? Why can't I do this? Why do I always do this? Why do I always quit? Why is this so hard? Those are unhelpful questions. Those are unkind questions. Those are assuming that there's something wrong with you and there's nothing wrong with you.
You're wonderful and a normal human. Life keeps lifing, guys. And so when we can be really kind to ourselves and ask ourselves these better, kinder questions that are much more helpful and will give us better answers, it's just it feels so much easier.
We can adjust so much easier and we can have our plan be really supportive of ourselves and our life. So those are the four key points to building a plan. Start small, live in your season, partner up, and be kind to yourself.
That is how we build a plan that helps us move in the direction of more health, better health, move in the direction that we want to go, move in the direction of the feelings that we want. Everybody's got their own plan. That's why I build a plan.
This episode isn't like do these seven things because my seven things are not the same as your seven things. We're in different seasons. We have different goals.
We have different lives. We're different people. The key here is we each make our own plan.
We build our own plan and we do it in a way that feels really good, really supportive, and is able to adjust as our life changes. Okay, guys, we're almost through Vibe. We've got vision, identify, and build.
Next week, we've got E, and that'll finish her off. If you have any questions, always, always, always message me. I love answering questions.
If this is giving you something to think about, a new way to think about things, let me know. I'd love to know that. A podcaster's best way to get this podcast into other people's ears is for you to share it.
I want this in as many ear holes as I can. I really think that it can help people, and I really like connecting with people and starting really good conversations. Leave a review.
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