My Selph health coaching journey - Week 4

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 weeks later here I am - looking back on the fourth 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 3 here.

This week of motivation was a very transformative one for me. It created the space for me to reflect on what’s important to me and why. I realised ways in which I held myself back from my goals and that so many of my goals were connected to something bigger.

In Week 2 and 3 of the course, I did two 30 minute yoga sessions each week. This week I upped it to three sessions because I was enjoying it so much! I also exceeded my recommended moderate activity goal for the first time this week and it felt completely amazing. It contrasted so much to what I used to think I would be able to accomplish in a week. It consisted of yoga, dancing for fun in my room, and brisk walking (it all adds up!).

I have set myself a new intention for next week - I want to dance every day to at least 4 songs. I’m setting this as a new habit because despite knowing that I love it, I don’t do it much at all. I’m not a good dancer by any stretch of the imagination, but I truly feel better afterwards and have so much fun doing it! It releases stress and gets my body flowing. I want to feel more of that connection and coordination between my mind and body - music is such a lovely way to do that. Who knows, maybe my dancing will improve with practice, as an added bonus!

In my coaching session, my coach guided me through identifying my core values and how to connect more deeply with my “why”. She helped me to imagine what I might feel looking back over my life knowing I accomplished everything I wanted to and had the kind of life I dreamed about. I realised that it would give me comfort and a sense of pride in myself knowing that I lived my life authentically and with integrity.

In the end, it all boiled down to confidence! Confidence is something that my inner critic believes I lack and she holds me back from it the most. I fear not having confidence - so of course it had to be at the centre of my “why”. My “why” behind most of my goals is to have confidence. Confidence in myself, my abilities, my choices, my relationships with others. I think a lot of people might relate to this wish for confidence, which makes me happy to have that new connection with others.

Confidence enough to say YES to adventure, compassion, trust and self-expression. To look back when I’m old and know I was sure of myself and made those choices that were in line with my core values. To know my life wasn’t ruled by fear. I crave vulnerability and openness despite my fear of judgement. Since then, I’ve been imagining banishing fear and bringing confidence in its place.

I have a lot of big goals, enough to last me what feels like my whole life. My coach said that the way to get there is with small promises to myself. To make the decisions every day that will get me there further down the road. After all, as Dr. Rick Hanson said: “What’s the most important minute in your life? It’s the next one.”

My coach said that I was on that path, already choosing what served me and dedicating myself to my health goals, and that she’d seen a change in me already!

Knowing my core values will be useful for me to use to motivate me in the habits I’m building throughout the course. In finding my “why”, I can reflect back on it when I’m feeling a lack of motivation and use it as my driving force.

Whenever I used to hear “motivation”, I’d think about “procrastination”, because I thought I only needed motivation to get a job done. Now, I know it’s more than that - motivation is what will be my driving force throughout my life. Despite it being a part of me I criticise the most, knowing that I am driven by confidence creates a whole shift in my mindset.