5 Steps to a Healthy Lifestyle – Transform Your Well-being Today

Transform your well-being and unlock your full potential with these 5 steps to a healthy lifestyle. Living a healthy lifestyle is a choice – the power is yours.

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Key take out

• You are the most important asset that you have. Living a healthy lifestyle is a choice and yours to make.
• A healthy lifestyle is a holistic approach. Sleep, movement, nutrition, balance and a positive attitude toward life are the key pillars of a healthy lifestyle.
• There is no one-size-fits-all approach. Find what works best for you and stick with it. Consistency is key when it comes to creating and living a healthy lifestyle. Choose small, sustainable changes over drastic changes.
• A healthy lifestyle will positively contribute to your physical, mental and emotional well-being, allowing you to reach your full potential and live life to the fullest.

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First of all, well done for making yourself a priority.

What does it mean to live a healthy lifestyle?

Any first thoughts that come to your mind?

• keep a balanced diet
• drink more water
• regularly exercise

…we are heading in the right direction here, but before we start talking about the 5 steps to a healthy lifestyle, let’s look at the key elements that build a healthy lifestyle.

5 Key elements of a healthy lifestyle

Below are the 5 key elements that build the foundation of a healthy lifestyle:

• Sleep
• Movement
• Nutrition
• Balance/stress management
• Positive attitude toward life

All these elements are interconnected. If one is out of balance, it will impact the other elements.

If the imbalance continues for a longer period, it is likely to cause an overwhelm. This overwhelm can result in physical health decline, mental health issues, reduced productivity, unhealthy coping strategies (e.g. overeating, substance abuse, etc.), loss of enjoyment, etc.

Tip: To help avoid an imbalance, prioritize self-care, set boundaries, and make time for activities that nourish all aspects of your health and happiness.

5 steps to a healthy lifestyle

Now that we covered the basics, let’s look at how you start a healthy lifestyle.

Quick heads up: each of the 5 steps to a healthy lifestyle comes with a practical exercise. But if you are committed to yourself, this won’t hold you back. Apart from that, the groundwork will give you some valuable insights about yourself which in the long run will help you to maintain your healthy lifestyle.

Get yourself a notebook or a few sheets of paper and then let’s work through the 5 steps to a healthy lifestyle together.

5 Steps to a healthy lifestyle #1: Journal about your ideal self

Journaling is a great way to quickly analyze and better understand a situation and get the necessary insights to help you facilitate change moving forward.

Journal prompts:

• What does it mean to you to be healthy?
• What are the things that you already do to support your health?
• Are you getting enough sleep?
• What does your exercise routine look like?
• What are you doing regularly to nourish your soul?
• What is something you should stop doing right now to support your health and well-being?
• What is something you can start doing right now to support your health and well-being?

Try not to overthink it, be honest with yourself, and write down what comes up. This way you will get the best insights about yourself and your behavior patterns.

Congratulations. Step 1 out of 5 steps to a healthy lifestyle is completed.

5 Steps to a healthy lifestyle #2: Understand your ‘Why’

In step 2 out of the 5 steps to a healthy lifestyle, we will dig deeper and ask for your ‘why’.

Your ‘why’ will guide you to your intention.

Ask yourself:

• Why do you want to live a healthy lifestyle?
• What would change for you if you lived a healthy lifestyle?
• How different would your life look?
• Would it change you as a person? What kind of person would you be?

Knowing and understanding ‘why’ you want something is key to changing a behaviour pattern.

Your ‘why’ is your personal, emotional motivation. It could be for example that you want to lose weight to fit into your favourite pair of jeans again, it could be that you want to feel more confident in your skin, or maybe you are looking to strengthen your body to release physical pain, etc.

Every action we take has an intention and once you are aware of ‘why’ you want something, you will notice yourself making better decisions for yourself.

Decisions that are more aligned with your ‘why’, decisions that are more aligned with your life goals overall, and in this case with living a healthy lifestyle.

Take time to define your ‘why’. The clearer you are about your ‘why’ the stronger your intention.

Once you are clear about your ‘why’ we move on to step 3 out of the 5 steps to a healthy lifestyle.

5 Steps to a healthy lifestyle #3: Identify unhealthy habits

Bad habits or unhealthy habits keep you from living the best possible version of yourself. And as you can imagine, bad habits also harm your health and well-being.

Go back to your notes from the journal exercise in step 1, specifically to the question: ‘What is something you should stop doing right now to support your health and well-being?‘

Use the insights from the journal exercise to make a list of all your bad habits.

A few examples of bad habits or unhealthy habits are:

• Skipping meals
• Going to bed late
• Constant procrastination
• Bad time management
• Making excuses all the time
• etc.

Once your list of bad habits is complete, take a few moments to reflect upon them.

Don’t judge yourself. We all have bad habits. However, most of the time, these bad habits are unconscious. But by writing them down you are already taking a step towards changing your bad habits into good habits.

Tip: Whenever you need a break during the exercises of 5 steps to a healthy lifestyle, feel free to take it and come back to finish the exercises whenever you are ready. Keep in mind, the power is yours.

5 Steps to a healthy lifestyle #4: Define a clear goal

Defining a clear goal will help to keep yourself motivated as it gives you something to focus on.

In addition to this, it helps you measure your progress along the way.

To set your goal, determine exactly where you are right now. From there define where you want to be in XX days/weeks/months/etc.

Be realistic with the timings you set for yourself and make sure to define some smaller milestones along the way too.

Tip: Change is not easy, it takes courage and consistent effort. Make sure to celebrate every time you achieve one of these smaller milestones. Achieving these smaller milestones will boost your motivation and encourage you to keep going.

Write down your goal and put it somewhere visible so that you can see it every day.

Stick it on your fridge (yes that is a classic), your bathroom mirror, place a Post-it on your desk, make it your phone and/or laptop screen background, etc.

Let this be your reminder and daily motivation.

5 Steps to a healthy lifestyle #5: Create your healthy lifestyle plan

In the last step out of the 5 steps to a healthy lifestyle, create your game plan AKA, your healthy lifestyle plan.

Close the circle and change these bad and unhealthy habits into good habits.

If you are e.g. skipping meals, think about starting meal prepping to ensure that you are covered for on-the-go snacks/meals, etc.

Or if you are e.g. not getting enough sleep, would establishing an evening routine help you?

If you like to snack, can you change your usual go-to snacks to healthy snack options instead? Etc.

Go through your list of bad habits and think about how you can change them into good habits.

This can be overwhelming at first, but keep it simple and focus on the top 3 that you consider must-haves to achieve your healthy lifestyle goal within the time frame that you set for yourself.

With your goal in mind, schedule the things that need to happen during the week in your diary.

Below are a few examples for inspiration:

• allowing 2 hours for meal prepping on Sunday afternoon
• schedule regular exercise
• effective time management
• make space for social connections
• spend time doing a hobby
• regular self-care
• start a journal
• …

As mentioned, take your time with the exercises. The more thinking you put into these exercises 5 steps to a healthy lifestyle, the stronger your foundation will be and the easier it will be to establish a healthy lifestyle long-term.

After 5 key elements of a healthy lifestyle and 5 steps to a healthy lifestyle, we will stick with the magic number 5 and look at 5 important steps to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

5 Important steps to maintaining a healthy lifestyle

Step 1: Establish a morning routine

For a lot of people, mornings are the most stressful time of the day. But how you start your day sets the tone for the rest of your day.

If you for example start your day feeling stressed and rushed, the rest of your day is likely to feel the same.

A morning routine gives you a structure for your mornings and you end up with more time for yourself. You could use this additional time for having a healthy breakfast, a morning workout session, reading a book, working on your side hustle, etc.

This is additional time you can use to help you achieve your healthy lifestyle goal.

Step 2: Sign up for fun workout classes

Movement is one of the 5 key elements that build your foundation for a healthy lifestyle, so let’s make sure to sign up for some fun workout classes.

Don’t worry too much about the number of calories that you will burn in one session, more importantly, make sure that you enjoy what you are doing. Because if you enjoy what you are doing, you are more likely to come back to it which is the main point.

Pick something that gets you excited, how about pole dancing, hip hop classes, tap dancing, etc? Check the offers in your area, and who knows, it might even bring a few new friends into your life too.

Tip: If you like yoga, or have been thinking about starting yoga, check out my weekly schedule, or take my 3-Day Morning Yoga Challenge.

Step 3: Eat with the seasons

Nutrition is one of the 5 key elements that build your foundation for a healthy lifestyle. Aim for a balanced diet and eating with the seasons could be a great way to help you with that.

Eating with the seasons reconnects you with the natural cycle. And when you eat with the seasons, your body will get exactly the vitamins that it needs during that time of the year.

Ditch the supermarket and head to the local farmers’ market instead. Get curious about your food, learn where it comes from, how it’s grown, etc., and get ready to indulge in freshness and taste.

You will notice that seasonal food tastes better and is cheaper too.

Step 4: Learn to say ‘no’

Protect your energy, learn to say ‘no’ and make yourself a priority.

This is not always easy, but saying ‘no’ is essential for maintaining boundaries, reducing stress, preserving energy, and fostering personal growth and well-being.

Furthermore, saying ‘no’ enables you to prioritize what matters most to you and live authentically and intentionally.

Keep in mind that you are the most important asset that you have.

Step 5: Be consistent

Yes….good old consistency…but as with everything in life, consistency is key.

Just imagine: if you do something consistently, it gets easier and easier over time and at some point, it will turn into a new habit. In this case, a good habit, which is exactly what we want.

So if procrastination was one of your bad habits, leverage consistency and change it into a good habit moving forward.

Apart from that consistency helps you to develop self-discipline and is the foundation for long-term achievements aka your healthy lifestyle goals.

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Bonus tip: stay hydrated

As important as nutrition is for healthy living, so is drinking water.

60% of the human body is water. Yep, that’s a lot to keep up on. Drinking water keeps your brain active, helps the digestive system, keeps us energized, regulates the body temperature, hydrates the skin, helps to detox, etc.

Apart from this, water carries lots of important nutrients.

If you are struggling to keep up with your hydration, treat yourself to a shiny new water bottle. Choose a size that is easy for you to carry around. Keep the bottle on you all day long. Make sure your bottle is always filled with water.

And as we were just talking about hydration, make sure to keep an eye on your coffee consumption.

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Before we wrap up this week’s blog post 5 steps to a healthy lifestyle, there is one last thing that I would like to mention: try not to get obsessed with the outcome.

Yes, we do have a goal and I want you to take your goal seriously, but don’t get obsessed with it. Make it a game, play, have fun along the way, and don’t forget to live life.

Balance – one of the key elements of living a healthy lifestyle.

If you enjoyed this blog post, I am sure you will enjoy the ones I listed for you below. Make sure to give them a read too.

• 10 Healthy Lifestyle Habits for Busy Women
• 7 Mindful Gratitude Activities For Adults – A Journey To Abundance
• Awakening your Inner Light: 55 Transformative Shadow Work Journal Prompts

As always, I would love to hear from you. How did you get on with the exercises of this blog post 5 steps to a healthy lifestyle? What is your ‘why’? If you would like to share, feel free to join the conversation below.

As always, thank you so much for your time and your space.

Stay wild,

Nicolle

Featured image: Photo by LyfeFuel on Unsplash