READ IF: Health feels like a fight!
If health feels like an uphill battle, it’s time to step back and rethink your approach. What if the struggle isn’t because it’s impossible, but because the approach needs to change?
Permission Slip:
This year, I gave myself permission.
If I’m fighting it, I need to re-evaluate how I’m approaching it.
(“It” notes anything I might be fighting, from my diet, work, or even my spouse)
I realized that, in most cases, the fight indicates that my approach isn’t working. So, I gave myself permission to stop fighting things, and you’d be amazed at how much further I’ve grown because of it.
There’s a concept for this, the Law of Reversed Effort. It suggests that the harder you try to force something, the less likely you are to achieve it. When you push too hard, you often end up resisting the very thing you want.
But let me preface this by saying:
Some things absolutely require effort. This isn’t about giving up or being complacent. There are battles worth fighting, but the key is choosing the right ones. Be careful not to turn tools for growth into battles you feel you have to win.
When it comes to health, though, we need to shift our perspective. Health isn’t a battle. Seeing it that way implies your body is working against you. But the truth is, it’s working for you. It’s doing the best it can with what it has.
So why does it feel so hard?
In most cases, it feels hard because we’ve neglected the basics. We’ve failed to give our body the energy and resources it needs to thrive.
Health is like the domino effect.
It works best when you focus your effort on tipping over the first few dominoes—the foundational ones—and let the energy and momentum take care of the rest. It’s the power of small habits creating big changes over time.
The problem is, many of us start in the middle, trying to knock down the big dominoes first. We go after what looks like the biggest payoff—strict diets, complicated routines, or trendy hacks—without realizing that skipping the basics stops the momentum altogether.
And when the momentum stops, progress becomes unsustainable.
This is exactly why so many health strategies fail. It’s not that they’re bad ideas—it’s that we don’t have the capacity to sustain them.
**Your body needs the basics first to create the energy to support anything bigger.
Do you see how this relates to the common trends in health? We often attempt the big things with little regard for whether we have the capacity to maintain them. Then, we get frustrated when they don’t work.
That’s why I keep coming back to the fundamentals. Before anything else, prioritize the basics.
Before overhauling your diet, work on light hygiene.
Before adding supplements, make sure you’re moving your body.
Before buying fancy biohacking gadgets, optimize your sleep patterns (which improve naturally with better light hygiene and movement).
The truth is, bigger isn’t better if you don’t have the energy to carry it.
Most of us would benefit far more from going back to the small, foundational things we’ve been tempted to overlook in search of a shortcut.
If you’re ready to do that, I’ve got good news: that’s exactly why I created The Walking Club.
Your Permission Slip:
If you feel like you’re fighting it, let this be your permission to re-evaluate your approach. You might just find the answer in simplicity.
Ready to start? Let’s go back to the basics together.
Listen to the latest podcast to learn more, including the five A’s that build the pattern of health.
Ask yourself, what human basic do you most often neglect (example, hydration, movement, sunlight, grounding, nature, sleep, beliefs)? Leave a comment below, and maybe it will be our next topic of conversation!
