My Selph health coaching journey - Week 11

I’m going through Selph’s Coaching Programme and recording my journey as I go!

My name’s Sarah-Lizzie, and you might have seen my other articles on our Learn page! Like everyone, I have my own goals and challenges to overcome. I can admit my health needs improving. Holistic health coaching sounded like the right place to start. A few months later here I am - looking back on the second last week of my Selph coaching journey.

You can read about my first week to find out why I chose to start my coaching journey. If you missed last week’s instalment, you can read my thoughts on Week 10 here.

If someone asked me 6 months ago if I feel empowered, I wouldn’t have known how to answer them. But now? Now, I can say yes and not feel like a fraud. This course with Selph has helped support me towards my goals and I can say that I’m incredibly proud of myself for not only choosing to do the course, but for continuing to put effort in and coming so far.

I have been able to gain a lot of appreciation for my progress and where I am currently at with my goals. I have come a long way in the last 11 weeks. This week, I really let this soak in. It was further than I expected I’d be and I’d achieved a whole array of things in my journey.

I’d set out in Week 1 with the goals of improving my relationship with food and exercise. I had found a form of exercise that I look forward to doing - something I never expected I could find. Not only this, but I feel more confident, more aligned with my goals and more connected with those around me.

Acknowledging all this gave me a huge feeling of empowerment this week.

The thing that still stands out to me the most is the exercise. Believe me, if someone had told me three months ago that soon I'd be enjoying a form of exercise enough to look forward to doing it, I wouldn't have believed it.

Not a single time in the last 11 weeks did I ever force myself to exercise when I didn’t want to. Funnily enough, I found myself excited to do my yoga practices and intentionally making time in my schedule for it. A schedule that I had thought was too busy to fit it in at all.

I've been almost despairing recently about how I used to find things like exercising a few times a week so impossibly hard. Whereas now I'm finding it almost second nature. It's crazy how fast healthy habits can kick into gear.

When something makes you feel amazing, it just makes you want to make time for it. It makes you prioritise it above other time consuming things like watching videos or scrolling on your phone. But I think removing the pressure and listening to my body really helped me see exercising as a positive, fun choice I was making rather than a chore.

Sometimes when we think about the future it can be scary. What if I can’t keep this up? What if I fail at the next hurdle?

Maybe we can try to shift our mindset to see the future as being full of endless unknown possibilities instead of things we worry about. Possibilities that we (mostly) have control over. And we have the courage to open those doors and explore them.

Not seeing failures as mistakes but rather as chances to learn. Understanding more about what excites us and pursuing those things. Isn’t that what life’s all about?

In the past, I’ve lived in limbo waiting for a day when my future would “start”. When one day, I would finally feel ready to put my best foot forward and be who I wanted to be. Choosing to do this course was my way of saying, “why not today?”. What was I waiting for that meant it couldn’t be now?

It turns out, nothing. I can be happy now and put myself first now. I can put my health first now and not be so afraid of failing that I don’t even try. And that’s why I can say I feel empowered today - because of the choices I’ve been making over the past 11 weeks which led me here.

Empowerment made me realise I’ve come a long way but that I can also keep going further. I can continue to set new goals and reach them, feeling proud of myself when I do.

I think we could all do with feeling a bit more empowered. We’re all faced with different challenges but the things we accomplish are deserving of acknowledgement and praise. When you’re climbing towards your goals, it can seem daunting, like there’s a long hike ahead.

Don’t forget to give yourself some credit. To stop and look back at the view - at how far you’ve come in your journey. And know that you’ll keep going and be able to look back one day at where you are right now.