19 – It’s About Progression Not Perfection
What if the key to a healthier life isn’t about achieving perfection, but embracing steady progress instead? Join me as we commit to the journey and celebrate every small victory, reinforcing the idea that success is carved out one mindful step at a time.
Transcript
Sharise Parviz: 0:42
Today we are in the car because I am traveling to go out of town. I wanted to chat today about a question that came in to me, and this is from a woman who is trying to make some lifestyle changes and is feeling completely overwhelmed, demotivated and frustrated with herself because she feels like she just can’t make these big of a changes so quickly and she doesn’t know what to do, and so I thought I would share that with you, because we might all feel that way from time to time I know I have, and you may have too and so I thought I would answer that question right here today’s podcast. So what do you do when you know you’re trying to change your life or shift your life, change your lifestyle, lose weight, eat right, work out, have better relationships, have better thinking, develop a deeper spiritual life, and on and on and on, and you’re going. I can’t do all of this. It’s too much. Yeah, it is too much if you’re trying to do it all at once. Yeah, it is too much if you’re trying to do it all at once.
Sharise Parviz: 1:46
So the idea I want to impress upon everyone who’s listening and to the lady who wrote me, is hey, hey, hey, slow down, chill out. It is about progression, not perfection. I’m going to repeat that again. It’s about progression, not perfection. I’m going to repeat that again. It’s about progression, not perfection. And I really do mean that, because if we try to slam everything in, we just burn ourselves out and we end up giving up. It’s too much and we end up going right back to where we were, where we’re going to make much better results, have much better results and make much better progress if we just give ourselves time to implement slowly. So progression, not perfection. So I thought I would illustrate how I do it, how I progress when I’m trying to build back a habit.
Sharise Parviz: 2:46
So I typically, you know, it’s taken me a long time in my life like 20 years to develop my lifestyle, and it doesn’t have to take you 20 years, it’s just. You know, for 20 years I have lived in this lifestyle, lifestyle, okay, of the way I want to eat and the way I want to treat myself physically, exercise, fitness, all of the habits that I have. The lifestyle I have, you know that has been a ongoing, you know, progression. I guess, like ongoing development. For you know, over 20 years, when I, after I, became very, very ill. Now there have been times in my life when I fell off the wagon, you know, and most recently, just before this at-home reset, I fell off the wagon and skinned my knee and bumped my head and had to stand up and shake myself off and go.
Sharise Parviz: 3:44
Where am I? Because all of everything I used to do, all of the things that I know to do, I just they were gone for like two, two and a half years. Why? Because life got in the way. I mean, if you’ve been following the podcast then you know. You know that all the things and stress that I was dealing with with my husband’s healing and all the crazies that were going on in my life and lost, you know, people that I love all just kind of happened and then that just went downhill dancing, stopped, exercising, started. You know wonky thinking going. You know thoughts that I never had before about aging and all this stuff. You can go back and listen to all those episodes previously.
Sharise Parviz: 4:35
But I knew this wasn’t where I wanted to be, so I knew I needed to go back and go back and change my lifestyle. Now, because I typically live in the lifestyle I want to live in, it’s pretty easy for me to get back into it. My body, my mind, my heart, all of me kind of recognizes yeah, you know, I know we’re not where we’re supposed to be. And when I start to get back on track, the body goes oh yeah, okay, we’re on track, track. Now we’re exactly where we know we’re supposed to be and it starts to fall in line pretty quickly. But I still take it slow. And when I have clients that come to me that have either like fallen off the wagon, like I did, for whatever reason, but our typical, you know, their typical lifestyle is one of that they’re very happy with. Or if I have a client that’s come in and it’s like this is completely new, they have never done anything like this, but they, they need to change their life. They are determined to to make a transformation and to shift their life for the better so they can live the life they really want to live and have the health they really want to have. And, you know, leave the legacy they really want to leave, right, and you know they’re coming in fresh. And I’d start them the same way. And that is again, progress, not perfection, right, we want to make progress, progression, not perfection. So let’s get to it.
Sharise Parviz: 6:05
When I work out. There are about four basic activities that I do during the week for my training, for my physical training, yoga. Now, all of these also have a lot of other benefits as well, but let’s just take it on the physical training level. Okay, my yoga is one, my cardiovascular is two, my strength training is three, and then my dancing is one. My cardiovascular is two, my strength training is three and then my dancing is four. Now, within those four modalities of fitness that I have, I do various activities right within those modalities, but those are the four basic pillars of my fitness, right? So I have my yoga, my strength training, my cardio training and my dancing. Okay, four things.
Sharise Parviz: 6:55
Well, I typically getting on back on track, or, if you’re somebody new, but let me just talk about me first so getting back on track, or if somebody who’s been on track, like me and just needs to get back on track, what I do is the first week I will commit to doing one of those activities, only just one, and I will determine how many days that week I will do that activity and just for that week, that is the only activity that I do. So, for instance, I usually start with yoga, because yoga is a really good transition to getting the body moving again, or getting the body moving at all if it hasn’t been moving. So I start with my yoga and I will do commit to my yoga that week. Now I may, you know, throw in other things because I just want to, but I don’t commit to anything else but the yoga that week. Okay, once I have completed that week and I feel I’m on target and for doing the number of days of yoga I want to do, then the second week I will move into, usually cardio. I’m usually ready for some cardio then and I determine how many days of cardio I’m going to do and I commit to doing that number of days. If I do more, great. That’s a cherry on top. If I do other things, that’s great too. But I’m only committed to doing the cardio Now, along with the cardio.
Sharise Parviz: 8:21
I’m still doing the yoga, right. So I’m doing the yoga the first week, continuing yoga the second week, and I add in the cardio. So the second week I’m doing the yoga and the cardio. Okay, week three same idea. I think you get the idea. I’m still doing the yoga. I now I’m doing also the cardio and now I add in the strength training Determine how many days I’m going to do the strength training for and then commit to doing that. So the week three yoga is going, cardio is going and strength training is going. Week four here we go. If all of those are on target, we’re doing good. Then I, week four, bring in my dance. Again, same idea how many days am I going to commit to Great? And then now at that, by week four, I’ve got my. Yoga is now like pretty much all a habit now. Cardio is going, strong Strength training is going good, and now I add in my dance Okay, and that’s how I do it. So by month two, all right. Week five or month two, whatever, I’m pretty much got my my routine down. So that’s how I do it.
Sharise Parviz: 9:30
Now, if you’re just starting new to physical fitness, you might go a lot slower than that, and that’s okay. For instance, you may start with yoga the first week, just doing it once a week, and then just sticking with yoga for like the first month. The second week, maybe you add a second day, the third week, the third day. For everyone it’s a little different. It just depends on your schedule, your interest, your conditioning level. You determine that how you’re going to work your schedule based on those factors right. So it looks different for everyone, but that’s just an example of how you make slow progression and though you may think it’s slow, that’s okay. It is slow. That’s okay, though, because you’re still progressing, you’re still moving forward, and whether you’re just increasing the number of days you know for each week of every month and then once you’ve got that settled in as a habit, then maybe it takes you two months to build that habit in. You know, to get to where you feel. Ah, now I feel like I’m doing enough of the activity each week to feel good about it and I’m like, right where I want to be, and that’s individual for everyone. So maybe that takes you a couple of months before you bring in something else. That’s okay. You know everyone again has to work on what works for them.
Sharise Parviz: 10:45
You know this goes back to my podcast about you determine what healthy is for you based on your lifestyle and your desires, not on some experts outside opinion. Same thing with your life changes. So you start slow and you build up. Now the same idea of taking one thing, making that a habit, then adding in something new is the same thing you do with everything else, and that’s whether it’s your diet, whether it’s adding in some type of supplements If you’re doing I do very little supplements but I do do some and at some point I’ll talk about it but it’s adding in some type of supplements. I do very little supplements, but I do do some and at some point I’ll talk about it but it’s all food-based, like cod liver oil, fish oil. I do iodine right. There are certain things that I do take that are food-based, but I don’t do them all at once. I start with one, I build that habit into my life, then I bring the next one in and I build that habit into my life, and so on and so forth, and you can take that same schedule of progression for anything in your life.
Sharise Parviz: 11:49
Meditation, you might start. If you’re new to meditation, you might start with two minutes a week. You know that might be all you do. Could be two minutes a day, that’s great. Find a week you know that might be all you do. Could be two minutes a day, that’s great. Find a time, find how many days you want to commit to it. I always say start on the low end of anything If you’re new to something and you don’t really know how you’re going to respond to it. Always start low and slow. Okay, low and slow, but get on the go, meaning do it. Find something as minimal, the easiest step forward you can do. That’s low and slow, but get on the go, get going with it, okay.
Sharise Parviz: 12:31
So if you’re new to meditation, right, and you’re not quite sure if you can even do it, and you certainly can’t sit there for 30 minutes, that’s okay. What about one minute? What about one minute every morning or night? Whatever works for you? You pick out the time, it’s your schedule, it’s your life. So you pick out the time that you want to do it and do it for one minute and just focus on your breath for one minute, that’s it. Do a breath focus exercise or a mantra exercise, take a verse from the Bible and just meditate on that for one minute, whatever works for you. And maybe you do that once a week, maybe. If you feel like you can commit to once a day, great, but again low and slow, then you may do the next week, increase your time or frequency, and then the next week, increase your time or frequency, on and on and on, and you just keep increasing your time or your frequency or both, whatever feels right to you, until you build a habit that feels good for your lifestyle.
Sharise Parviz: 13:36
You know, I think the most difficult thing about changing our lives when I think about my clients. They come to me and they want they may start coming to me and they may start with I want you to give me exactly what to do and I go. I could do that. It’ll last for, like I don’t know, a week maybe, because the truth is is we very rarely want to do what we’re told to do. We very rarely will do it.
Sharise Parviz: 14:04
Okay, if if we were going to do what people told us to do, we wouldn’t need as many diet books as we have out there. If we were going to do what people told us to do, we just wouldn’t because we’d have the result. You know there are how many diets out there to lose weight. Let’s just talk about losing weight. I’m not talking about health, because honestly I think GAPS diet is the diet for building health in in your life, but and I mean for any condition. But let’s just talk about diet books for a second. How many diets to lose weight do we need? And the problem is is that there’s not? That there’s? They don’t work is that we don’t stick with them because our own, because we like being independent, we like being able to decide what’s right for us. That’s the truth.
Sharise Parviz: 14:51
We’re rebels, you know, and, and so we’ll like, yes, tell me what to do and we’ll do it. And we’ll do it for a little while, and then, until you know I don’t know, that chocolate cake looks really good. I don’t need to do this diet. I don’t need to do what you tell me. You’re not my mom. I don’t need to do what you tell me. And then we dump it, then we go looking, and then that diet, and then we’d look for the next thing. And we’re constantly looking for the next thing and wasting a whole lot of time looking for the next thing, instead of just sticking with the one thing that could have gotten us there faster than looking for the next thing over and over and over again. The reason why is because we really don’t want to be told what to do. That’s the truth. It sounds good, just tell me what to do and I’ll do it, but it doesn’t last.
Sharise Parviz: 15:40
The real challenge in changing your life is not doing the, making the changes. It’s taking the responsibility on yourself to decide what those changes are and how to make them. So when I work with a client, I don’t tell them okay, you’re going to do this and this and this and this and this, that’s what you’re going to do. I don’t do that Because I know immediately they’re not going to do that or that or that or that or that. Or if they do, they’ll do it last minute because, well, we’ll do it before we have our next session together. No, no, no. I want you to get results, not do what I say. What I will do is I’ll say look, what is it you want to do this week and I’ll throw out some options and what sounds good to you. So start wherever you want to start.
Sharise Parviz: 16:30
If you want to change your life, don’t do it all at once. Where do you want to start? What seems the easiest, simplest step to start with? Is it Adding fitness back into your life? Okay, what fitness would you like to add in? Choose one area Cardio flexibility, stretching or yoga, strength training, or is there something else? Right? Choose one thing and add it for the week. Determine how many days Do it.
Sharise Parviz: 17:01
Second week either add in frequency or add in time, or add in something else. Do the same thing. Focus on one area of your life, your mental life. You want to work on, again, meditation, two minutes once a week. Or if you can do every day, great once a day, once a week. Or if you can do every day, great once a day. After that you’re able to do that. Add in time or frequency and find that and do that in each area of your life right. But keep it small, keep it doable, keep it no pressure and journal it. Journal it, write it down so that you see your progression each week and that you know what you want to do.
Sharise Parviz: 17:48
You pre-plan for the following week, because that’s really important too is planning for what you want to do. It doesn’t have to be this big, you know elaborate planning it. Just, you know, at 7.30, I’m going to, you know, go for a 30-minute walk or whatever. Again, it doesn’t have to be 7.30. It doesn’t have to be a 30-minute walk, you decide, you choose what it is that you want to start with. Start with one thing Change in diet.
Sharise Parviz: 18:17
You might start with just eliminating processed foods. That might be a great start. You might just start with increasing your water intake. That would be a great start. Start with one thing. Once that one thing becomes a habit and you feel comfortable with it, add in something new, that’s it.
Sharise Parviz: 18:37
It’s progression, not perfection. That’s the only way we really are going to move forward, and always remembering it’s a journey until the day we die. We will never get there completely, and that’s the exciting part too, because there’s adventure. When we know that the adventure is ongoing, we’ll never get bored. There’s always something more to learn, something more to experience, something more to challenge in a fun way. Again, it doesn’t have to be a difficult challenge, it can be a fun challenge. Perception, remember. Perception is everything. So, again, progression, not perfection.
Sharise Parviz: 19:17
One small, small, simple step. That’s all you need to do. What small step can you take today? What small step can you take this week? That’s it. That’s all you need to do. What small step can you take today? What small step can you take this week? That’s it. That’s all you have to do. That’s all you have to think about. You don’t have to think about a lifetime of change that has to be made instantaneously. And you’re failing if you don’t do it all. No, you fail if you don’t do anything, if you give up. That’s the only failure. There’s no failure. In falling there’s no failure and even falling off the wagon, only failure is if you don’t get up and you don’t start so low and slow, but get on the go, start it off, all right. Hopefully that gives you some, uh, some rest and peace about making some of these big life changes. Small, small, small steps, baby, small steps. Baby, all right, Remember to burn the boats. Baby Right, take the island and just commit to the path ahead, and one small step at a time. Talk soon.