Is your goal this year to make a total health transformation? While this might sound awesome in theory, knowing how to get started can be incredibly overwhelming…

Do you start with picking out a new diet plan? What about a workout routine? What about supplements — multi-vitamins, collagen, probiotics? OH MY!

Look, I get it. Every influencer and health expert online has a different recommendation about what you should do to get healthier. Some of their advice is probably great…a lot of it is not so great…

So how do you know who to trust and where to start?

Personally, I think anyone who’s advice ignores the mental and emotion part of this kind of transformation should be ignored. You can have the most perfect meal plan and workout routine ever, but if you don’t follow through with them, what good does it do?

That’s why I teach women to focus on their mindset first and let the physical results follow…

How to Transform Your Health in 1 Year

Today I’m sharing 6 steps you can take to transform you health in one year, starting from the inside out. 

Ready? Let’s get started…

Step 1 – Start with the right mindset and motivation

I know it isn’t as exciting as some quick-fix thing like taking a shot apple cider vinegar every morning, but this is the cold-hard truth. If your only motivation to change is about the way your body looks, you’ll to have a much harder time. 

You need to have multiple, compelling reasons WHY you are doing this. Physical changes can certainly be part of that. But, when it’s 10:00pm and you’re craving ice cream, you’re brain will tell you that this one time is no big deal.

Those are the moments when you need to have other WHYS that go deeper. When I started my health journey some of my deeper WHYS were about the other people in my life. I wanted to be an example of the kind of change that is possible. I wanted to model a healthy lifestyle so I could inspire my loved ones to do the same.

So when the cravings hit, I could always remind myself that this change was about more than just looks. I wanted to prove to myself that I could overcome my own cravings and unhealthy habits so that one day I could inspire others to do the same.

Read more: 3 Common Mindset Mistakes when Starting a Healthy Lifestyle

Step 2 – Visualize your future self then “act as if”

This is a powerful tool I love to use with my clients. When you visualize the future that you want and really feel into that future person (how they think, feel, act), your brain starts to change.

Visualizing the future you (the you that has already transformed her health and maintains her results with ease) will give you powerful insight into the steps you will need to take to get there.

When you think about how the “future you”, you might realize that she has certain habits, routines, likes, dislikes, thoughts, feelings or motivations that are different from your current self.

Those areas of difference will direct you to exactly what you need to start changing now. The more you practice visualizing your future self, the more clear the picture will become in your mind. Then, the goal is to start showing up for your life TODAY thinking, feelings, and acting as if you were already the “future you”. 

For example, I used to think about how the future me would go to the gym regularly. She wouldn’t be inconsistent with it. She would go whether she felt life it or not because it would be a part of her routine. In order to move myself closer to that vision, I started showing up at the gym every morning. Some days all I did was walk on the treadmill and stretch. I just kept showing up consistently until eventually, it became a habit.

Read more: https://www.throughthephases.com/act-as-if/

Step 3 – Set mini-goals and review your progress daily

We’ve all heard that setting goals is something we should do…Writing down a goal makes you 44% more likely to achieve it, blah blah blah. I know, you’ve heard all that before. What you might not have heard is the daily plan and review method of goal setting.

This technique helps you stay focused on what you can do today to stay on track without getting overwhelmed. It also helps you evaluate what’s working and what’s not each day so you never waste a learning opportunity again.

Start each day by writing down a quick list of things you’re going to do today to stay on track with your goal. Since the food we eat has the biggest impact on our health, I like to recommend starting by creating a plan for everything you will eat in the next 24 hours. You can think of this daily food plan as your mini-goal for that day. Eat as closely in line with your plan as possible. 

At the end of each day do a brief review of how well you did sticking to your plan. Simply answer these two questions: Did I stick to my plan? If not, why?

This gives you an opportunity to learn so you can adjust your strategy moving forward. The goal is to always be learning and celebrating your successes. Instead, what most women do it beat themselves up if they aren’t perfect and never acknowledge the wins. When you achieve your “mini-goal”, you now have an opportunity to acknowledge yourself for doing well.

Read more: 11 Weight Loss Eating Habits That Actually Work

Step 4 – Master the basics before moving on

When it comes to transforming your health, consistency beats all else. You won’t see or feel changes from day-to-day, meal-to-meal, or workout-to-workout. To really experience a health transformation you need to become a MASTER of consistency in a few fundamental areas. 

The problem most women run into is that they put their focus on the wrong things first. Instead of mastering the basics (sleep, water, and healthy eating habits) they jump into complicated diet plans, demanding exercise routines, and lots of quick-fix supplements. This is what I call “shiny object syndrome”. 

All these do is take your focus away from learning the fundamentals. It’s like building a house, without first taking the time to create a solid foundation. Sure, you might have a pretty house, but the moment a storm comes it gets washed away. The same thing applies to your health — if you don’t master the basics, the moment things get challenging you fall right off the wagon. Then, you’re right back where you started.

To really transform your health in 1 year you need to focus on mastering the basics first. That means…

• drinking plenty of water: at a minimum drink half your body weight in ounces of water per day
• getting plenty of sleep: everyone’s different, but 7 hours should be the minimum
• creating healthy eating habits: eating mostly unprocessed whole foods, not emotionally eating or overeating

Read more: 5 Habits For Beginning a Healthy Lifestyle

Step 5 – Celebrate little wins (& not just the physical ones!)

Warning: It’s all too easy to brush this step off! Women have a hard time acknowledging their wins. But doing so will help you foster the consistency needed to make it through this health journey.

It’s easy to celebrate when we see physical changes, but about when those haven’t come yet? There will be times when you feel like you’re doing everything right and the physical changes aren’t showing up. Do you think “it’s not working”? Do you give up?

If the way your body looks is your only marker of success you might give up too soon. You could be right on the verge of seeing changes. If you give up you’ll never find out what you could have achieved…

That’s why I recommend finding other markers of progress. If you didn’t give in to a craving, you stop yourself from overeating, you follow your food plan for the day, or you don’t beat yourself up for not being perfect…those are all wins! Intentionally allow yourself to feel gratitude and appreciation for yourself and who you are becoming.

Read more: https://www.healthline.com/health/non-scale-victories

Step 6 – Hire a coach

The best way I know of to ensure that you reach your health goals this year is to hire a health coach. Health coaching helps you to remember to do steps 1-5 consistently until they become engrained in your very being. 

Making a lifestyle change like this can be really hard because no one else in your life knows who you really are deep down inside yet. The only version of you that they know is the version of you that you’ve been in the past… 

But your coach, on the other hand, will be there to regularly remind you of who you truly are. They will help you stay more focused on your future instead of your past. They’ll remind you about who you are becoming week after week, until you don’t need reminding anymore. 

Another reason coaching is amazing is that it helps you gain perspective and identify solutions that you might otherwise miss. Often, we’re too close to our biggest challenges to really zoom out and recognize the solution sitting right there in front of us. Coaching helps you make clear decisions and more easily solve the problems that inevitably arise along the way.

As a health coach, I’ve seen clients make lifestyle transformations that they thought would take YEARS in a matter of weeks. With the right mindset and focus, everyone is capable of this. That’s why working with a health coach is like hitting the fast-forward button on your results. 

Click here to read about my coaching program and some of my client’s wins!

One final thought…

If you want the most effective way to transform your health in 1 year, I highly recommend hiring a health coach.

In my own coaching practice, I do free consultation calls for anyone interested in learning more about hiring me as their personal coach.

On these calls we chat all about where you’re at now, where you want to be, what’s been keeping you stuck, and what shift you need to make to start seeing the fastest results. 

I would love to help you make this transformation this year.

Click here to schedule your consultation call and get started now.