My Selph health coaching journey - Week 5

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 fifth 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 4 here.

When you think about your goals, do they seem actionable or are they far away in the distance? Clarity helps us move closer to them by focusing on what’s important to us. This week my coach continued to send me daily messages, helping me get closer to setting clear goals that aligned with my greater sense of purpose.

Last week I found that I desire more confidence and happiness in my life. This week, the task was simple: notice what brings me closer to these desires and what pulls me away from them.

I realised that self-sabotage is still something I do that pulls me further from my desires. When I feel like I haven’t done enough of something, I unconsciously (or sometimes intentionally) hold myself back from the things I enjoy, like going outside, drinking water, seeing my friends, having a nice shower or getting dressed up.

In denying myself these nice things, I am punishing myself for not finishing the task I intended to. This behaviour moves me away from what’s important to me - happiness and confidence. I could begin to notice when I was behaving in this way. I thought about how someone else might treat me instead - encouraging me, rewarding me and allowing me to have ups and downs in productivity. I hope to work towards becoming that person with Selph’s support.

I set my first ever health-related SMART goal: to dance to at least 4 songs a day. I wanted to retain joy and excitement for exercise, as I had been finding with my yoga practices and mindful walks. Dancing more often is a reminder to my body that movement is fun!

I made myself a dancing playlist and every night I danced in my room. It became a ritual and a reward, intentionally scheduling it in to move me closer to what’s important to me. I wanted to get more in-tune with my body, it’s movement and help my limbs to flow naturally to increase my spatial confidence and feel comfortable in my body.

After one week of this, I know I’m going to keep it up. It’s not a task for me, it’s a chance for connection with my body and my inner confidence.

I wanted to keep on growing and progressing. My coach encouraged me to set some focus points for this week and the weeks ahead.

The first was to increase the intensity of my exercise sessions, which I did by upping the level I was following for my yoga practices from beginner to intermediate. With this came more variety to my practices, which I am enjoying. I found it challenging and then all the more satisfying once I had completed each session. I can notice my ability improving, which motivates me as it brings confidence to my practice.

The second focus point I set myself was to expand on my gratitude journal. I wanted to bring more authenticity to each entry by including a section called “Reflections of the day”. If something was challenging or I was in a certain mood that day, I could write it down. It would then be followed by my gratitude practice and compassion entries.

Looking back, I’ll be able to see that even if I had a difficult experience, I was still able to list 10 or more things that I was grateful for that day. Knowing that I am able to do this gives me confidence that the bad days in my future will be full of gratitude, too. It reframes negativity bias and paints a more realistic picture of my daily life, normalising the more challenging days for me.

I’ve never seen myself as someone with a vision, a clear cut goal that I am working towards in my life. But during this coaching course, Selph has helped me realise more about my core values and my “why”. I crave confidence and happiness and those can be what I’m working towards.

Clarity has helped me notice which of my behaviours push me closer towards confidence and happiness and which pull me away. I want to continue noticing and prioritising these desires, aligning my internal and external behaviours with them in everything I do.