The One Thing That Made The Biggest Change in My Health

I finally realized what made the biggest change in my health this past year… and it wasn’t a diet, discipline, or “trying harder.” It was something I never would have expected.

I finally realized what made the biggest change in my health this past year (and honestly, I would never have guessed this in a million years).

This past year has been one of the most transformative seasons of my life. Besides becoming a mom for the first time, that stands in its own category. Nothing really compares to that kind of change.

But this year brought something different. Something I’ve been trying to understand and articulate for a while because it didn’t come from a new diet, a stricter routine, or more discipline, even though it changed all of those things.

It came from inspiration.

I know, probably not what you thought I was going to say. Definitely not at all what I could have imagined either. But when I look back, living inspired and having something meaningful to move toward changed everything.

It shifted how I eat, how I move, and how I show up in my marriage, parenting, and even my relationship with God. And not at all because I forced it, but because it happened naturally.

Now, before I lose you. I need you to hear me out. Because I think it’s going to blow your mind as it did mine. And honestly, maybe it’s the question you need to ask yourself…

What if your health issues aren’t because you have a discipline problem, but because your body is bored?

What if your eating problem wasn’t a food problem, but because you’re lacking purpose?

What if your marriage issues weren’t because of your spouse, but because of your own uncontentment?

If you read nothing else, think about this…

A bored body. A bored mind. A boring life always creates problems because problems get you moving and doing.

What I’ve realized in my own life (and in others) is that a lack of purpose and inspiration is silently destroying people’s health.

Which is why “destination thinking” has become so attractive. It leads you to believe:

• If I could just get x, then I’d be happy.

• If I could achieve y, then I’d feel satisfied.

But life, at least this side of eternity, isn’t really about arriving. It’s about growing. And that “arrival” message is doing more damage than we realize, all while making a lot of money for industries that benefit from your misery.

I know this might be controversial, but I think it’s also transformational. Especially if you see the action is really only a slight pivot from chasing to creating, but the outcomes are massive.

And that missing piece most people don’t see, what I didn’t see, is we’re bored.

Our bodies are bored. Our minds are bored. Our lives are boring.

And I know there’s a lot of conversation right now about how we “need to be more bored.” But I think before we make assumptions, we need to define what that actually means.

What most people are experiencing isn’t healthy boredom. It’s emptiness, which leads to stagnation and becomes the opposite of how we were designed to live, which is why people create problems.

Healthy boredom is an action, an exploration, and creation.

It’s all action, but in a different direction.

Boredom doesn’t actually exist in the form of nothingness, because nothing is still something. You’re always in motion, even if you say you’re not. Take meditation, for example. It’s often what people assume is the absence of thought, but it’s really the redirection of your thoughts (because the mind never stops thinking).

We are wired for movement. For creating, building, living, and doing. When you feel bored, you’re not actually doing nothing — you’re always doing. The direction is just away from what you want to move toward and back onto the old patterns.

It’s why boredom leads to:

• Binging the bag of chips

• Mindless scrolling

• Distracting yourself

• Addictions (although there is a bit more to this than boredom, even though boredom is a player)

• Creating problems because problems give you reason (if not even force you) to move

I can’t tell you how many problems I’ve created in my own life, including with my health, because I was bored.

How many times have I eaten, not because I needed food, but because my body was bored?

How many times I engaged in behaviors that didn’t serve me, simply because I didn’t have something greater pulling me forward.

Do you see it?

Boredom isn’t the absence of doing. It’s just doing things that keep you stuck. And when the gap boredom creates isn’t filled with purpose, we fill it with problems.

That’s why a “bored body” becomes an unhealthy one. And it’s also why something as simple as walking can have such a powerful effect, not just on your body, but on your mind and creativity.

Ask yourself this…

The real question isn’t: Are you doing enough?

It’s: What is driving what you’re doing?

Because most people fall into one of two patterns:

1. We let boredom build until it creates problems that force us to act.

2. We bring in inspiration and let that drive how we live and create health, life, and purpose.

One path is hard (and is the creation of your own misery).

The other is easy (and builds momentum to continue).

This past year, I finally chose path two, and can I tell you how easy that made health? Not because it’s always easy, but when you remove the “problems,” the choice carries less resistance.

Are your health problems a boredom problem?

Which leaves me to ask:

• Are your health problems a boredom problem?

• Could your eating problem be because you’re uninspired in life?

• Is your marriage a problem because you don’t have any fun?

• Could your anxiety be because your mind has nothing purposeful to do?

This is one of those important questions that forces you to shift what you are looking at. It turns the mirror back on yourself.

Over the last year, I created a three-minute ritual I add to my morning that has shifted my purpose and changed my direction (the key to behavior change is not changing your behavior, it’s changing your direction). As a subscriber, you will get:

• The exact 3-minute exercise I use to shift my direction daily.

• The “After The Show” episode, where my husband and I break down how we eliminated “trying” from our vocabulary and how this changed our understanding of control.

Here’s a free preview of “After The Show.”

Get the full episode below.

Why You Should Stop “Trying” And What To Do Instead

Check out this week's podcast (LISTEN HERE) and then listen to this “After the Show,” where we prove why “trying” gets you nowhere and what to replace it with.