I don’t know about you, but when I first started coaching lifestyle and behaviour change, my perception of what it looked like was far different than what I know now.

We tend to think the trajectory of lifestyle change looks like a straight line from A to B. Often, the only truth to that is that the journey starts at A. How we get there looks more like a cat chasing a laser pointer than a straight line and the more accepting we are of that fact, the more we can learn about ourselves along the way.

Behaviour change is hard. A lot of us have been practicing old behaviours that no longer serve us for decades, so it makes sense that changing these behaviours will take time. One of the things we know about changing behaviour is that we will get it wrong- a lot! This is not failure but rather learning, or failing forward. The only true failure is the refusal to move from the starting line because we no longer believe we can change. Change is possible – our clients have shown us this more times than we can count – but sustainable change is slow. I say sustainable change because when we want behaviour change to last, it must be built upon a new foundation of lifestyle skills that take time to implement. When we try to change everything at once we end up overwhelmed and onto the next plan. That’s a failure of process- not our ability to change.

So what exactly is failing forward when it comes to lifestyle change? It’s realizing your why and holding it tight regardless of how many times you “fall off the wagon.” Falling only requires a course correction not a complete abandonment of the plan. I tell my clients the most important concept in lifestyle change is consistency. Weight loss can look many different ways to different people but the one constant is that we just keep going. When we hold onto the idea of improving our health and the reasons why it is important to us, the “falling off” is just learning. We then continue to tweak (over and over again) until our new lifestyle feels clear and simple. Simple; but never easy. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it!

Tracy Fisher, Health Coach