Everything You Don’t Do Is Still On Purpose

Have you ever thought about your health like it has a pause button?

As much as any of us might think these reasons (or excuses) are unique, these are just some that I’ve frequently heard both from men and women, of different ages, and from various walks of life:

1. I’d like to get healthy but right now my life is just too busy with school. So, you press PAUSE.
2. There’s too much going on over the summer (and holidays, birthdays, other celebrations, etc) to try and be healthy. So, you press PAUSE.
3. I want to eat better but my job is too demanding. If I had to think about what I ate it would be even more stressful. So, you press PAUSE.
4. I’d like to lose weight but I give all my energy to my family and at the end of the day I’ve got nothing left over to focus on me. So, you press PAUSE.
5. I’ve thought about working out but the weather is too hot or too cold or too rainy, the gym is too crowded and if I try to work out at home I’m not inspired or motivated. So, you press PAUSE.

You press PAUSE thinking that, when the circumstances are right or when you are ready, you will put in the effort. It’s easier to coast along in what we tell ourselves is “lack of action”.

FALSE: You can UNPAUSE when the difficult or uncomfortable situations finally change.

We place conditions on our health all the time with the assumption that there’s a middle ground between being healthy and unhealthy, like some kind of magical oasis of health where we just stay the same with no progression and no regression. We’ve decided it’s perfectly okay and comfortable and seems to be fair since, after all, we’ll get around to being healthy on purpose at some point when we have more time, more money, more desire and when the conditions are just…perfect. For now the magical oasis of perpetual, automatically sustained health by way of changing nothing, is awesome! The problem is, that place doesn’t exist.

As long as we’re not making strides consciously and consistently with the specific intent to be healthy, the result is being unhealthy on purpose.

 

I know it bites because it always feels like getting or being unhealthy just “happens”. It seems like the thing that takes zero effort therefore, without any action or participation, suddenly I’m unhealthy. Except that, it’s not true. When you begin thinking about the opposite scenario, that the default response of changing nothing is the same as “on purpose”, you’re actually making a choice to be unhealthy. It brings some gravity to the idea and awareness that we constantly and continuously make choices about our health whether we think about or not.

There is no pause button on your health and there will always be space in your life to be healthy on purpose especially when you consider you are either for it or against it. Being unhealthy does take effort, action, and participation. Just changing your thought process on this one concept gives some pretty powerful fuel toward making long-term habit changes and making an ON PURPOSE motion toward pursing health for the rest of your life.

Dawna LS Wilson