Setting up your Week
One of the things I see my clients and community members struggle with the most is feeling like they’ve failed. They start the week feeling very motivated, they tell themselves (or maybe others) that they’re going to eat healthy all week and workout every day.
Then Wednesday hits and that motivation is starting to crumble, so they skip their workout for the day. Thursday comes and their kid gets sick, changing all their plans for that day. By Friday they’ve abandoned ship, are eating chips straight from the bag over the kitchen sink because they’re starving, and eat a whole sleeve of oreo cookies (with milk, cause duh) after dinner because ‘wow what a shitty week this has been’. Saturday and Sunday they beat themselves up because another week has come and gone, they didn’t follow through on their plan for the week, their clothes don’t fit right for dinner on Saturday, and they just don’t know WHY they don’t have the willpower to “do better”.
If that cycle of events sounds familiar to you, let me share with you exactly what I teach my clients: don’t set yourself up for failure.
Sit down on whatever day you do your planning for the week (I feel like this is most commonly done on Sunday), and write out all the events you have going on that week. When does your kid have practice or a game, does your husband have a weeknight meeting he’ll be gone for, do you anticipate having to work late a couple nights this week, etc.
Once you have those things written down & have a general idea of how each day is going to flow–how many days can you fit in a workout and what type? Can you do 45min of strength training on Monday but then the rest of the week you can only do a 15min walk on Wednesday & Thursday? Great, write it down.
Now think about food….how many meals will you eat at home? How many times can you cook this week? When will you need to grab fast food or prepare something in advance?
NOW you’re ready to set your realistic goals for the week. And remember to give yourself a little wiggle room because especially when you have kids, things have a way of not going as planned, to no real fault of your own.
You will be much better off arriving at the end of the week successfully achieving your realistic goals & feeling good about it, than if you arrive at the end of the week feeling like a failure. Why? Because this protects your mindset and self esteem. Mindset plays a HUGE role in our overall health.
Need help setting up your week and setting realistic goals? DM me on IG @wellness.with.vanda and I would love to help you!
Have you downloaded my free resource? The “I don’t have time” toolkit? I put this toolkit together specifically to help you set up your week for success as a busy Momma of littles with so many responsibilities on your plate! Click here to download it now.