Goodbye Perfection, Hello Progress and Healthy Changes that Stick Podcast Episode 166

Transcription of Podcast

Please note this transcription is generated by software. There may be some errors. I hope you find it useful.

Hello, Hello. Hello. Welcome to fit and fabulous with me, Dr. Orlena, hope you are feeling amazing today. Hey, you know what? Spring is just around the corner. It's really strange. I look at this time of year and I'm so reminded of two years. Just before COVID hit. And I remember walking to school with the kids and looking at the trees and thinking, oh my goodness.

Spring is just around the corner that I can see the buds on the trees, but they haven't yet burst into those beautiful green leaves that trees do at the beginning of spring. And clearly we got sent into lockdown. And so we didn't get a chance to do the walking to school bit when the leaves were really, really great.

And it just feels like, oh, life has been put on hold for two years and it's almost like I've gone into a little wormhole and come out the other side. And now we're going to get back two years and sort of carry on with relatively normal life. Oh, musings, musings musings. Today. I want to talk about why progress is better than perfection.

And I know you probably know this, but I want to give you a few stories to really illustrate this really super exciting stories about me cleaning my windows. You know, you love stories about cleaning. Okay. Before I dive into some thoughts about that, just exciting things that are going on behind the scenes.

My Healthy Living Workbook is Nearly Ready!

Number one, my book is nearly ready. Hurrah, hurrah. So exciting. It's I think I haven't quite decided yet. My healthy, my amazing health journey, essentially it is my system and work pages for you to work through and habit tracker. So essentially how you can apply my system yourself without having to pay.

To have my coaching because obviously my coaching is great and my group is fabulous. And you know that they're for people who need the support, but not everybody has the budget or the inclination to do that. So this book is for you if you're thinking. Yep. I really wish I could do coaching with you.

Adjust don't have the funds book is going to be amazing. So that is number one and that I haven't set a date, but it should be the end of April, beginning of may. And I'll do a five day challenge to go along with that and we'll have a launch party and all of those exciting things. So that's number one, number two tomorrow, Wednesday.

Come and Do the Magic Likes and Dislikes Exercise for Free!

Super exciting. I am going to be doing my magic likes and dislikes exercise for free. As a group work. And I will leave a link in the show notes for people to sign up. So what is my magic likes and dislikes? It is an amazing exercise that. I do normally one on one, but I do it one-on-one I charge $300 for it.

Actually. I've had so much amazing success from this. It is like magic. It isn't magic. I will explain it how it works, but essentially it allows you to either dial up or dial down a dislike or like, if that makes sense. So I, you may have heard this story before, but I use it on my son this time last year, because he loves.

Red apples. No, sorry. He liked green apples, but he wouldn't eat red apples. And we used to have this big battle about, oh my goodness. You know, there's some red apples, but I haven't got any green apples. Why don't you just eat the red apples? They're perfectly the same and they're fine. And he would be like, no, no, no.

I can only eat green apples. Anyhow, I did this magic thinking on him as I call it. And he has been eating red apples happily for the last year. Just a side note. I don't do this on. Other than my own children, I do this on adults. So as much as I would love to offer it as a service for kids, it's not something I do.

I just do it. I'm adults. Now I have done this on as a group as well on my own clients. And so I'm going to offer it for free for people who are interested tomorrow. So that is super exciting. What else is going on? Oh my goodness. So much stuff. I'm starting to be more consistent in my Instagram and I have booked some amazing Instagram lives to do with.

Your New Favourite FB Group. Come and Join!

And I will send out details of those and replay because I'm not that organized talking about menopause at the moment, actually on Instagram, but other things coming up. So I'm arranging other people to chat. I will let you know details. So super exciting. And of course, obviously the Facebook group is always there for you.

It's a free resource. There are lives, there are questions. It's a great place for you to come and you can connect with me. So for example, I've given out free copies of my book, obviously the draft copy to people who I connect with in my Facebook group, so that they, while it's great for them, they get a free copy, but also it just helps me to iron out any of the issues and see what I can improve.

So. Join the Facebook group. Okay. Let me tell you about cleaning windows. I know you are dying to hear about cleaning windows. Now the thought behind this story is this so many people get upset when they don't do things perfectly. So typically when I start working with somebody and you know, we have a.

Want Support to Make Changes? The Healthy You Healthy Family Program is Made for You!

Session, we iron out what they're going to do. Everybody's really excited. And after a week I meet up with them and say, Hey, how did it all go? And the first thing that people tell me is what they didn't do perfectly it like without fail. This happens. And this is, I think a human trait that we focus on the negative, but this is what happens.

We focus on the negative and then I sit back and say, okay, so put that on hold now. Because those things are golden learning opportunities. Now tell me what you've changed and what you've done well, and then they'll come up with a list of, oh, I changed this and I changed that and I changed all these other things.

But the first thing that is on their mind is I didn't do this perfectly. Particularly, if you're working by yourself or making changes by yourself, it's a really dangerous place to be because you think, oh, I didn't do it perfectly. Hey, I'm going to Jack it all in. It's not worth it. And I say, no, no, no, no, no.

Why Progress is Better than Perfection when it Comes to Healthy Living

Like pick yourself up, dust yourself down and keep making progress. Perfection is better than, sorry. Progress is better than perfection. Keep going is better than perfection. So here's the story about. Windows my dream house, which is the house that I now have. And I have been creating my dream house in my mind for us.

Imagine You’re Cleaning Windows…

And then in reality for the last five years and my dream house is light and bright. And lets the light in now. I don't know if you've ever been dismayed, but typically a lot of houses here in Spain are dark. And I presume that they were created like that because obviously it's a very hot country in the summer and you have that refuge inside.

Now, the house that we bought had one room that we used to call the sale through because essentially it had no windows and it was really dark. And we used it for our dining room for a little bit, but there was nothing in it other than artificial light. And it had a door on either side. Well, that's not true.

It had a tiny little sort of window vent, but you couldn't see out of it. So now I have my dream house, which is light and bright. And Hey, how do you make things light and bright? You put windows in. So, Hey, guess what? I got loads and loads of windows in my house, which means I now have to clean loads of windows.

And my mum very kindly gave me this amazing little window cleaning machine, which I totally love. But I still have lots of windows to clean. So I quite enjoy cleaning windows. I have decided that it is an expression of my love to my house of gratitude, to my amazing house. And instead of seeing it as a chore, it's something that I enjoy doing.

So at the weekends, I do some window cleaning. And I obviously do them as well as I can. And I look at them and think, wow, these are great windows. Now get up in the morning. The sun is shining. Obviously it's coming up above the horizon. And here in Spain, we have beautiful sunny days, even in the winter.

My Clean Windows are Never Perfect!

Not always, but quite often. Now the thing about direct sunlight through the window is it shows all those smears. And I look at these windows and think, Hey, yesterday, these were perfect. And now I look at them and I'm disappointed and they aren't perfect. So I get out of cloth and I start rubbing and rubbing and rubbing.

No. I could get slightly obsessed about cleaning windows because none of them are ever perfect. When the sun shines directly in them. I can see all the imperfections, including sometimes it'll scratches on the glass. That was another disaster they put in the new glass. I could see a scratch, which you could only see when the light shines, but you know, I've paid lots of money for my new windows.

I’m Starting to Get Obsessed About Clean Windows!

I want not scratched windows. So then they say, oh, we'll Polish it. And they polished it and now it's got a sort of blob in it so that it's not flat and you don't, it distorts the looking out of it. And so then they had to replace it all. I'm thinking, oh my goodness. Well, when do we stop? When do we stop?

You know, looking at these imperfections. So here's the thing on the days when it's not sunny, yesterday was a prime example. Like obviously it was light in the morning, but there wasn't that directly. You can't see any of these smears, you can't see any of this. So I could spend my life perfecting, perfecting, perfecting, going round.

I'm busy telling the kids don't touch the windows because I've just cleaned them. And I could carry on doing that and doing that and doing that. But to what end now, if you think about the negative, think about if you've got dirty windows. So right now I haven't cleaned all the windows because I don't have time to clean all the.

Cleaning the Dirty Windows Gives Me More Results Than Polishing the Clean Windows

So at the weekend, say I have an hour, I could go and clean some windows. Now, am I better off polishing those windows that are essentially clean but not perfect. Perfect, perfect. Or am I better off spending that hour looking at the dirty windows and cleaning them and making them clean. And the answer is clearly I'm better off cleaning the dirty windows.

And I always say to my clients and people I'm talking to, you know, what? You are better off doing damage limitation. Fan polishing the perfect. So what does this look like? This looks like when you have a blow out when things don't quite go right when it's Christmas time or a party or something else, if you can limit the damage I'm using scare prose, but you know, the going off the rails, you have done so much more than if you're perfecting the perfect.

You’re Better Off Improving the Disasters Than Perfecting the Perfect

So at Christmas time, if you indulge a little bit, rather than a lot, you have actually in terms of benefits to your body done much more than if you create your perfect life for a week. And it's perfect. Perfect, perfect. But most of the time it's not perfect. So damage limitation is far more valuable than polishing the.

And on another cleaning analogy every day I have a shower and I have, oh, they called it a man pro here, like a shower screen, you know, like a, a shower screen every single day. I wipe the shower screen with a little squidgy thing so that it dries cleanly and it takes me what 30 seconds do that. It's actually quite defined.

So I can do that every single day, which means that the weekend, when I cleaned the shower, I don't really have very much to do. I don't need to clean it because it's all ready clean. Now, if I leave that job and I don't do it every single day, then I've got a much bigger job at the weekend. So my. Bless him.

Small Steps Add up To Big Results When it Comes to Healthy Living and Weight Loss

He's learning to clean his shower and he went and he cleaned his screen. I don't know quite what he did, but I just can't get it clean. It's got so many smears on it that I can't get it clean. I suspect I have to actually go and clean it for him to get him back on track. But I look at it and again, I'm polishing and getting rid of those smears and it doesn't seem to make any difference.

So just doing something small every single day really can. Add up and have benefit and save us from having to do a bigger job later on down the line. So I hope you've enjoyed my story of window cleaning and cleaning showers who knew that everyday things can really be an analogy for how we lead our lives.

So listen, come and join me tomorrow for the likes and dislikes exercise and have a fabulous day. Bye bye. (https://www.drorlena.com/emotional-eating-workshop)

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Episode 134: How to Make Weight Loss Easy After Menopause

Written By Dr Orlena

Dr Orlena Kerek (MBChB from the University of Bristol, UK) trained as a pediatric doctor. She is now a family health coach. She helps busy mums who want to feel amazing by eating healthy food, enjoy a healthy life, get back into their honeymoon shorts and teach their kids healthy habits all without thinking about it.

Want support and help in your weight loss journey?

Book a chat with Dr Orlena: https://bookme.name/drorlena/emotional-eating