5 Tips to Help You Show Up For Yourself This Week, Regardless of Your Goals
Photo by Dawid Zawiła on Unsplash
Showing up for ourselves is incredibly important. It’s the commitment to our goals and the pursuit of our passions that drives us to the life we want to live. It typically involves habit changes, which needless to say can be easier said than done. If you’re wanting to improve your health, for example, typically that involves changing your eating habits and incorporating more movement into your life, which may be difficult to stick with initially. If you’re wanting to become a better student, you’re likely going to have to allocate more time to your studies, which could involve saying no to going out. Regardless of our goals, often we'll need to adjust some of our habits, which will involve showing up for ourselves.
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When it comes to showing up for yourself, think of it as the determination that keeps you committed to your goals. It’s what gets you out of bed when your alarm goes off in the morning when you’d rather snooze for a few more minutes, or have you adding vegetables to your dinner when you’d rather go without them. Showing up for yourself is about putting your larger goals at the forefront of what you do, as opposed to giving into your immediate, short-term comforts.
Let’s go over the basics when it comes to showing up for yourself, with 5 tips that could help you this week.
5 Tips to Help You Show Up For Yourself This Week, Regardless of Your Goals
1. Determine your goals
This may feel obvious, but I want you to really define your goals. Get specific about what you’d like to achieve: visualize the life you want to live, what you’d like to do, and who you’d like to be. Depending on what your goals are this could look like the kind of people you hang out with, the kind of work you do, etc. Get crystal clear on your goals.
2. Evaluate your habits
This can sometimes feel uncomfortable, but after you’ve determined your goals you need to evaluate your life. Do your current habits align with your goals? And more importantly, do any of your current habits take away from your goals? For example, if you’re wanting to drink less, going out to the bar every weekend may be a habit that takes away from your goals. Spend some time evaluating your habits to get a baseline of where you're at in comparison to where you want to go.
3. Make a plan
This is where showing up for yourself really comes into play: a goal without a plan is simply a dream. Make a plan for how you’re going to show up for yourself to make your goal a reality. Some ways this could include waking up early, upping your daily steps, reading instead of watching a show, choosing a non-alcoholic option, drinking more water, creating a strict study schedule, and many more.
4. Identify your non-negotiables
An area where people tend to slip up is that they attempt to create a complete 180-degree life change overnight where they expect to change every aspect of their lives, and then inevitably fail when it becomes unsustainable. The reality is that things will come up that can shake up your course, so it’s more about weathering the storm than avoiding it altogether. Unless you are in a critical situation where you need a drastic change, my advice is to create your non-negotiables when it comes to your goals and commit to showing up to these couple of things regardless. For example, your plan may be to work out 3 times a week. It may feel like an attainable goal and something you’re excited to do. However, if life steps in and things get hectic, your goal may suddenly feel less attainable. Your non-negotiable, however, is what you’ll do no matter what. In this situation, when it comes to working out, your nonnegotiable could be to get 10,000 steps a day, regardless if you work out or not.
5. Keep going
Stay consistent, focus on your goals and keep going. The thing about showing up for yourself is that it’s not always about the big things, but rather, the small daily habits that build over time. It’s about doing the things you don’t want to do at the moment because you know it’ll help you in the long run, or doing the hard things now so you can live an easier life in the future. Show up for yourself when you’re tired, when things are hard and you want to give up. Believe in yourself and trust that things will work out. Don’t give up on yourself.