Podcast: Crossing the Rickety Bridge: Five Tips for Making Healthy Habits Stick
Summary of Podcast
Dr Orlena discusses the concept of the "rickety bridge," which is the transition from a life of unhealthy habits to a healthy lifestyle. Dr. Orlena emphasizes the importance of creating healthy habits in four pillars: healthy eating, exercise, sleep, and mindset.
Building habits can be challenging and requires constant focus, but it can be achieved with dedication and effort. Dr. Orlena acknowledges that life can be stressful, but healthy habits can help individuals cope with stress and stay on track towards their goals.
Dr Orlena discusses five things that are important to achieve a healthy lifestyle. Firstly, commitment is key to sticking to the journey and making it happen. Secondly, the positive brain is important to overcome negative thoughts that can sabotage progress. The third thing is accountability and getting support from others can help people achieve their goals faster. Dr Orlena emphasizes the importance of motivation and staying focused on the end goal, even when setbacks occur.
- Commitment
- Positive brain
- Accountability
- Motivation
- Making changes
Crossing the Rickety Bridge: Five Tips for Making Healthy Habits Stick
Transcription of Podcast
Please note this transcription is generated by software. There may be some errors. I hope you find it useful.
Hello, hello. Welcome to Fit and Fabulous with me, Dr. Orlena. I hope that you are feeling fit and fabulous. Spring is in the air. I went swimming in the seat twice this weekend, the first time. Oh my goodness. I was absolutely frozen when I got out. It wasn't a very sunny day, and the second time it was much, much more pleasant because the sun was shining and it's much easier to warm up.
Okay, today I want to talk to you about the rickety bridge. Now, you may not know what the rickety bridge is. I will tell you what the rickety bridge is in a minute. But five things that I think really makes a difference between crossing the rickety bridge easy and basically never getting across the rickety bridge.
From Overwhelm to Healthy Living: Navigating Life's Challenges
So, okay, let's just start with what is the rickety bridge and why on earth am I talking. So here is where you are right now. You are standing in a place where you know that healthy living and healthy eating and all the four pillars that I talk about, you know that that is the route to make the changes that you want to.
It might be that you want to lose weight, you want to get healthy, you want more energy, you want to lead along and healthy life, and you know that you need to start doing things differently. And you can see that on the other side of the bridge, the life that I'm constantly telling you about, that you know you can enjoy healthy living, you can enjoy healthy eating.
It can all just become a habit. It can be really easy. It's just what you do naturally. That is where you want to get to. So you've got a, things aren't quite going as well as you want, and b o, sorry, things aren't going quite as well as you want. Overwhelm, despair, frustration, all of those things. And B, the other side of the rickety bridge, oh my goodness, it's all just happening easily.
It's all fun. It's all just normal life. Now, I will caveat that with, hey, you know, when you get to the other side, it isn't that life stops. It's not like the zero. As I've been talking about recently, if you've been listening to my podcast, yes, there's stress. I have stress in my life. My 12 year old son is unwell at the moment, and we haven't found a solution to get him better, and it's heartbreaking watching him be unwell.
It feels like I have a hole in my heart. But that doesn't mean that I slip back to place A and am in despair and doom. So in place B, where you are leading what I call healthy, amazing you, you've got healthy, amazing you life. You still have the tools to be able to deal with whatever life throws at you without turning to food for comfort, without going off the rails.
Now, that's not to say. That you are never gonna fall off the rails. Yes, you might, but the trick is you get back up and you get back into healthy, amazing youth. So that is place B and what I call the how do you get from A to B is the rickety bridge. Now let's think about what's involved in the rickety bridge.
So, It is about creating healthy habits. Now, healthy habits are a conversation all in themselves, so I'll talk a little bit more about those in just a moment. But it's about creating healthy habits in four pillars. So healthy eating, enjoying healthy eating exercise that lights you up. Delicious, healthy sleep and mindset and emotional wellness, and that includes stress as.
So all four of those. Now, it's really easy for me to talk about, Hey, you just need to make habits in this, blah, blah, blah. It's so easy. But the reality is, okay, you actually have to do it. Yes. You actually have to create those habits. And the reality is, is that when you are on the ground trying to create those habits, you've got so much other staff going on in your life.
You might be busy at work, you might have family issues, friend issues, all of it together. And so, Your focus goes off. You're no longer focusing on that habit. Now, the thing about habits is what happens to habit. Is they are basically repeated behavior that you do and you do again, until it becomes something that you just do without thinking about it, like brushing your teeth.
I suspect that you don't have to put very much effort into remembering to brush your teeth now when you are building up habits. You do have to think about them because they aren't habits. You don't have that habit. So you do have to be actually focusing on what you are doing. And this is that rickety bridge.
Bridge bit. So you are focusing on what you're doing. You're focusing on what you're doing, you're focusing on what you're doing, and then you forget because life happens because you don't have that habit already. And then you forget, and then you feel demoralized and you think, oh, this isn't working, nothing works.
I'm broken. I can't. Now, it kind of depends what happens here. It might be that that's where you actually give up and go, oh my goodness, I can't do this. I just, I'm not doing this. It might be that you spend a bit of time doing whatever flying around in circles and get back on track, but that my friends is the rickety.
Overcoming Obstacles: How to Get Back on Track When You Fall Off the Healthy Living Wagon
You need to keep building up the habits and building up the habits and building up the habits until you get to that stage. Now, right at the beginning, those habits, they feel strange because they're not habit, they're not the familiar habit you have, and they feel a little bit like. Oh my goodness.
Uncomfortable. It doesn't feel normal to do it because they aren't habits. Now. That's all. Okay. It is all okay. That is the journey. And so really I think the, what I want to focus on today is what is going to make that journey either successful or not success. And it can be quicker or less. Quicker. I have every confidence that everybody can get there in the end if they focus on it.
But the problem is people don't focus on it and people can do it by themselves, but the problem is that they don't focus on it. So, They fall off and they start doing something else. And so it's kind of like saying, well, you could learn a musical instrument if you went to classes, but if you don't go to classes, you are not gonna learn the musical instrument.
Yes, there are other ways of learning musical instruments, but if you never pick up that instrument, you are never going to get better. And it's a bit the same with healthy living and getting to healthy. Amazing you. So here are the five things that I think. And they're not done in any particular order.
But here are the five things that I think really make the difference. And do you know what? Even if you get a coach, so this is what I do, this is what I help people do. I help them get from A to B in an easier way. And even if you have a coach, you still need these five. Qualities. And to be honest, your coach will help you with these five qualities.
The Five things that can help you get to a Healthy Amazing You
But I am always looking for these five qualities in the people that I coach. So if you have these five qualities and you think, oh my goodness, yeah, I really want to get to to Healthy amazing, you then book a call. Because right now I have my, what is called positively healthy chat and you are welcome to come and I will tell you what it looks like to have a coach and to really get from A to Healthy amazing you.
Commitment: The First Quality for getting Healthy
Quickly with support and making it easy and fun. Okay, so here are the five things that I think number one is commitment. Now you might go, okay, I get this, but I'm busy doing other things. But this is really commitment to healthy, amazing you. It's really prioritizing it. It's really saying, okay, this is something that is important in my life and I am going to do this now.
The, it's not that it ever has to be perfect. You don't have to commit to this one thing or this other thing, but you do need to commit to the journey and you do need to commit to going, yes, this is something that I want and I'm going to work at it. And working at it doesn't need to be hard. It doesn't need to be, oh my goodness, this is really difficult.
The commitment really is to going, okay, this is a priority. This is something that I am going to Really make happen in my life now, if you are totally, totally snowed under and you have so many things on your plate that you don't literally have 10 minutes in a day to do anything different or to go to a coaching call or to talk to anybody.
And you are saying, yeah, I want to change this stuff, but you can't, you haven't even got the brain space to talk somebody about it. Well then perhaps now isn't the right time and there's nothing wrong with that except that, well, when is the right time? Because there never is a right time. And so at some stage you have to decide, yes, I am committed.
Yes, I am gonna do this. I am gonna make this. So commitment is my number one thing, and as I say, it doesn't have to be commitment to any one particular thing. It doesn't have to be commitment to going to the gym or running or Any particular exercise or any particular tool that you use, but it does have to be commitment to figuring this out and staying on this journey and saying, this is important to me and I'm gonna make this happen.
Number 2: The Importance of Positive Brain
Now, moving on swiftly from commitment is Positive Brain. Now I have been talking about Positive Brain for the last few weeks. You can still get to the workshops. They're still in the Facebook. They're gonna come down at the end of the week. So if you haven't watched them, make sure you watch them. Make sure you sign up for them.
And you know, I do a really deep dive into what is your negative brain? What's your positive brain? What's the difference? How can you flip between one or the other? But for short term right now, your negative brain is going, it's too difficult, it's too hard. And there are saboteurs voices that you hear that we say to ourselves time and time again.
And there are nine different voices that we, that different people have. It may be victim, it may be hyper achiever. But we talk more about that in that, that workshop. So really you have what I call negative voice going round and round and round, and it will tell you something which will, will have a little bit of truth in it, but it's creating an obstacle for you.
Now, if you don't know what your negative brain says, think about all the reasons why right now is not a good time to get. And lose weight and enjoy healthy, amazing you, and that is your negative voice. All of those reasons that are saying, it's too hard, I'm too overwhelmed, I'm too busy. All of that. And yes, they are valid reasons, but all of that is stopping you from moving forwards.
So go and have a listen to those voices. Do your PQ reps. If you don't know what PQ reps aren't, go and listen to the workshops and then flip into positive brain and start to get curious about what is going on and start to see. They are huge obstacles that are being put in the way your brain is putting 'em in the way.
Remember, your brain wants to keep you safe, so what your brain is saying right now is, Hey, you know what? You're alive now. Let's not change things. This thing is working for me. But another part of your brain is saying, but things could be so much better. I could have more energy. I could live a long and healthy life.
I could move my body, I could lose weight. Oh my goodness. It's summer season soon for people in the Northern Hemisphere and it's, I wanna go to the beach and put on a swimming costume and feel confident in my swimming costume, and I can do all of those things. So you've got this sort of internal dialogue between negative brain and positive brain, and I urge you to listen to your positive brain and listen to your positive brain, not just in this, but all the time.
And if you switch to positive brain, it is the difference between, oh my goodness, I am feeling deprived. I'm restricting myself. I can't do any of these things. And oh, I am choosing to make healthy decisions because I want to feel healthy. I want that energy. I want to look after my body. I don't feel deprived.
I feel like I'm making a positive choice. And this is a lot of the mindset work that I do in. My program, which is currently called Healthy You Healthy Family, but actually I'm gonna rename it to Positively Healthy, or at least that's what I'm thinking of doing. Okay, so commitment, positive brain number three, accountability.
The Importance of getting Support To Keep You on Your Healthy Journey
And I think I can really put this under getting some support. I think getting support. Now, obviously I am biased, but getting support is a really sensible thing to do. Now, can you do things by yourself? Yes, of course you can. You can do things by yourself. Is it the quickest? Probably not. And here's the reason why.
If it was the quickest route, you would already be there by now. Most people would already be there. Now most people would be leading healthy, amazing you. And if you're not health leading healthy, amazing, you then getting support is going to get you there much more quickly. So accountability. Oh my goodness.
Accountability and Motivation Help You Get Healthy
There are so many studies show that, show that accountability really does make a big difference. If you have a pro a appointment with an accountability partner, you set your goals, you are much more likely to achieve that goal than if you just randomly think, Hmm, wouldn't it be nice if I lost weight and started eating healthily?
That's not a commitment to the. Now the other thing about support is motivation as well, and it's very easy to lose sight of your motivation. You get all excited and think, okay, I'm gonna lose 12 pounds in 12 weeks. And you start really, really strong and you think, okay, I've lost five pounds in five weeks.
And then something happens and you think. Oh, life happened. Whatever happened. It might have been a wedding, a party. It might have been something amazing, exciting. It might have been something negative. Somebody got unwell. Who knows what happens, but something happens and you take your sight off your goal and your motivation because you've thought about why you want to get those 12 pounds.
Wouldn't it be amazing if I lost those 12 pounds? And then you slip back into your old habits and you stop thinking about why it would be so amazing to get to those 12 pounds, to lose those 12 pounds. And so without thinking about your motivation, it's easy to just go, oh, it's so much easier to do these old habits.
Of course, it's so much easier to do those old habits. That's the point of habits. That's why I call it the rickety bridge, because it's always so much easier to do what you did. Now it's also easy to make changes. It really is easy to make changes when you are in your positive brain. When you have support, when you have accountability, it is easy to make changes when you, when you fulfill these five criteria, it is easy to make changes.
Being Prepared to Do Things Differently to Get Healthy
And so the last thing really is change and being willing to see change as a good thing. And this is really like a hurdle, getting over that, okay, here are my old habits. I'm just stuck in my habits. If you are just stuck in your habits, you're gonna carry on doing the same thing, the same thing. Now, if you can make little changes and keep making little changes, they add.
And you can start to do things differently and start to see that doing things differently isn't as scary as you thought it was. I always think I, I walk my clients through what I call a two week reboot, and part of the reason for doing a two week reboot is to show yourself that it's not as scary as you think.
I think a lot of people are scared of what they haven't done already. Because you haven't done it already. It's a little bit intimidating. So whatever your obstacle is, and it's different for different people. So some people might think, my goodness, I don't like healthy eating. Some people might think I'm a bit scared of exercise.
Some people might think, oh my goodness. All that mindset stuff that you're talking about, that just sounds scary. I don't wanna go there. I don't wanna think about emotions. I don't want to do any of that. Now, when you actually dive in and start doing, And you start eating healthily, you begin to see, oh my goodness, this healthy eating, it's not as bad as I thought it was.
I still feel nourished. I still feel like I've got enough food. I've managed to get over that sugar craving. Oh my goodness. Isn't this amazing? And being open to seeing those changes and realizing that actually the way that you were doing things before wasn't all that great. It wasn't serving you. If you were listening to this podcast or this video, it's because you want to make.
And these are the things that you need to do to make those changes. So let me recap. Commitment. Commitment to yourself. Commitment to prioritizing your health, your wellness, and going, do you know what? Right now is a good time to start leading a healthy life because if I leave it any longer, it's going to be too late now.
Now is your opportunity to start making. And doing it from a place of positive brain. Now, if you don't understand your positive brain, as I say, go and listen to those workshops and if you feel that you are in very negative brain, that's okay. The first step is to learn how to switch into positive brain so that you can see.
How being in healthy you positively healthy is really going to serve you, not just in your health and wellness, but in all of your life, in your relationships, in your business, in your productivity, in your jobs, in every single area of your life. If you can be in positive brain, your life is gonna be so much easier and so much more pleasant.
Number three, accountability. Accountability, because it keeps you on track. Support sorry. Motivation. Motivation. Because it keeps you motivated, it gives you a reason to want to do these. And it has to be your motivation. Something that inspires you, not something that inspires somebody else. It has to be something that really lights you up and you think, I'm really excited to do this.
Isn't this an amazing thing? And then the last one is change, and really being willing to try things differently, obviously in a way that works for you. You've got your busy routine, you've got all the things that are going on. So those are the five criteria that I really think make a big difference.
Going across the rickety bridge and turning it from, oh my goodness, a rickety bridge to oh oh. It's just a bridge. It's just a friendly bridge that we are gonna walk. It's so easy. It really is easy. And I say to people, I can make it more complicated for you if you want, but really it is easy. Yes, you need to figure out what's going on.
You need to figure out how to apply all of this stuff to your life. But that is easy. And another thing I will tell you about that rickety bridge as well, is that part of it is mindset. So we talked about creating habits, being in positive brain. And that is one of the key things. Now, the problem is you are learning to do this, so your brain is going to flip out and go, oh my goodness, this is too difficult.
I can't do it. It's not working. Yes, it is working, except that you flipped back into negative brain. So it doesn't, it's not an overnight thing. It's not like, oh my goodness, I get in suddenly. That's it. I've changed my life forever. I never face another obstacle. No, of course. Part of that rickety bridge.
Understanding what is going on. Being able to see your negative brain, being able to see the obstacles, being able to keep yourself on track. When you fall over, you pick yourself up and you go on. So part of it is predicting that there are going to be obstacles. If I say to you, okay, we're gonna do a 12 week program called 12, 12 pounds in 12 weeks.
That is the name of one of my programs, 12 pounds in 12 weeks. And as you go through this program in 12 weeks, you are going to. Feel that it's not working 12 times, and every time that happens to you, I'm gonna tell you. Okay, that's fine. This is part of the journey. Pick yourself up and go off and and carry on.
Go back to how you were doing it. Keep going, keep going. Now, if I tell you that at the beginning, you can count them off, you can say, oh, this is one of those times where I think it's not working. Tick, I'm gonna get back on track. But if you are not aware of that and you think, okay, this isn't working, and you believe that it's not working, you stopped doing it and it didn't work because you stopped doing it.
You just need to keep going. And that's why that rickety bridge is so amazingly rickety. It's so easy to fall in the cracks. It's so easy to give up and go, it's not working. I can't do. Okay, my friends. I hope that was helpful. If you want support, if you want the rickety bridge to be easy and you want it to be fun and you want to apply all the things that I talk about, then please reach out.
Do You Want to Chat About Getting Support From Dr Orlena? Book a Chat
Book here: https://bookme.name/drorlena/positively-healthy-chat
Book a positively healthy chat. I did realize that last week, what I said to people was that I had a special bonus for people who signed up for a call this week, but I forgot to tell you about it on the podcast. So that bonus is available until Wednesday. So if you book a call on Wednesday before Wednesday, You don't have to have the call on Wednesday.
The call can be for next week, but if you book it on Wednesday or before then you are still eligible for the amazing discount that I have. The should have finished last Friday if I had remembered it to tell everyone. So it's still open until Wednesday. So come and book a call. And I would love to talk to you about what it would look like if I supported you so that you can get to healthy, amazing you and you can really lead your amazing life.
And think about the energy, the weight loss, the feeling healthy into older age. Absolutely priceless transformation and totally doable. By the way, I've got a little video. I will attach the little video of my clients talking and saying, yep, this is the transformation that. Okay. Have a lovely day and I will see you soon.
Bye-bye.
