Your Health is Your Responsibility
Let’s discuss the act of taking ownership and responsibility.
I’m inviting you to look at your patterns and behaviors concerning these actions. Remember, this is just between you and yourself, so I encourage you to read openly and notice if you get dismissive or defensive. Often if something triggers us to feel upset, it’s highlighting an opportunity within us for personal growth.
We recently did a social media post encouraging people to take responsibility for their health. It’s interesting that every time we’ve done this, we get some push-back, usually in the form of excuses. “It’s too expensive, I don’t have time, that’s a privilege” are among the usual ones. I see this as people not wanting to take ownership.
Now I do understand that some circumstances make it easier- for sure. Having a disposable income to spend on health and wellness certainly helps. But not having it doesn’t mean you can’t be healthy. Taking ownership can look like minimal changes. Maybe it’s skipping a social event and spending that ticket money on a health item. Maybe it’s making coffee at home instead of grabbing Starbucks.
I marvel at these comments, and I wonder if people think that being healthy requires expensive greens powders, unique mushroom coffees, or fancy gyms. While these things are appealing, they don’t make or break someone’s health. It’s the straightforward, basic things that do. Less highly processed foods, more whole foods. Less sitting, more moving. Bodyweight exercises can be done anywhere and are free.
What I’ve noticed throughout my life is that some people are great at taking responsibility. Some people can understand that they have endless abilities to create change- in all areas of life. Whether in relationships, education, health, or finances. But it requires hard work. It’s hard to push all the excuses aside and own your decisions and choices. I understand that some circumstances make things more challenging, but I still see a lot of success come down to a person’s ability to take action and make changes.
I think some of this goes back to childhood. I see some parents making a lot of excuses for their kids in an effort to make them feel better about themselves or to avoid them experiencing negative feelings. I see some parents who can’t seem to take responsibility or make the necessary sacrifices and changes to shift the trajectory of their careers, relationships, finances, or health.
So I challenge you to take a look at your patterns. When a loved one has told you that something you did hurt them, how do you respond? Do you get defensive? Do you tell them why they are wrong to feel that way? Do you brush off their feelings? Or do you take ownership, acknowledge that what you did hurt them, and ask how to avoid that in the future? And do you make changes in the future? Take a minute to ponder a recent interaction with someone and imagine how it may have gone differently if you’d responded differently.
If your finances have been a struggle, do you blame your employer for not paying you more? Do you look over your expenses and acknowledge that some of your spendings is not necessary and could be changed?
The problem with blaming others is that there’s not as much opportunity to take action. You can’t control what other people do. You can only control yourself and how you respond to others. So even if it truly is another person’s fault that you find yourself in a predicament, it’s still YOUR responsibility to get yourself out of it.
Let’s say you had an awful Doctor who didn’t do a thorough exam, didn’t diagnose you correctly, didn’t validate your feelings, and who overall did an awful job. That’s terrible. Truly. But guess what? It’s still your body. Your health. And your responsibility. So it’s still up to you to take action. Find a new Doctor. Advocate for yourself. Change your outcome.
I understand that the discipline to be consistent with lifestyle changes isn’t easy. I know that motivation isn’t always there. It requires education, first and foremost, to understand what types of changes you can even make on your own. Moving your body might be simple in that it requires very little equipment and no gym, but you still need to know how to move it.
These are the reasons why we structured our programs the way we did. You will learn movement, yes, indeed. But you will learn so much more than that. We dive into nutrition, stress management, sleep optimization, and many other areas that you can improve, often with very little additional equipment or expenses.
Working on your ability to take ownership is not much different from working on a muscle. The more you do it, the easier it becomes. You will begin looking for ways to take ownership of your life when you begin to experience the drastic ways you can improve once you shift away from the blame game of trying to assign responsibility to others.
Are you ready to take ownership of your body and overcome your pain? With over 100 5-Star Reviews and a 30-day money back guarantee on our programs, you can enroll for no risk! Try our Limitless or Hypermobility program!
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Katie at Whealth