You lost weight. You mastered the diet. You resumed a fitness routine. You reduced chronic symptoms. You even developed a greater understanding of the ways your thoughts predicate what you eat, what you believe about healthy versus unhealthy, and even what you need to do to create consistent and healthy results.
You were in the flow and feeling solid in your get-healthy game and the results you were achieving.
And then something happened that sent you reeling. Your significant other deeply upset you. Your co-worker wrongly snapped at you. The company you were working with on a deal-of-a-lifetime offered it to someone else.
And you found yourself feeling defeated, angry and hurt… while sitting in front of an empty bottle of wine and extra-large-sized box of pizza.
And you couldn’t understand what happened.
Rather, intellectually you understood that you were just flat-out upset and reacting. But you also knew, because you felt it, that your unhealthy reactions not only left you feeling physically awful and mentally unfocused, you felt a sense of guilt. Guilt not because you were eating and drinking foods you swore off, but because you KNEW with every glass of wine you drank and every bite of pizza you ate, you were sabotaging your goal to reclaim your health and put your diagnosis in remission.
Breakdowns for Breakthroughs
My client announced his falling off “the program,” as soon as he got to our call.
This client is a player, in the highest sense of the definition. He gets that his success happens with every effort he extends, even if he falters. And he’s human too, in vulnerable and straight-shooting kinds of ways. He gets that his success happens, especially when he falters, because he knows a breakdown offers him the opportunity to poke at why it happened, which often gives way to a whole new understanding of what happened.
In my coaching practice, I work out of three “buckets.” The first bucket is a bucket loaded with nutrition and fitness strategies, tools and actions to use to help the body rebalance and heal on a physical level. The second bucket is the same; strategies, tools and actions to use, to help train and condition they mind to support winning, just like building muscles! The third bucket is the same, but with these strategies, tools and actions, we set to build connection to Self. No bucket is more important than the other. Each bucket is equally important, but in different ways for different clients. Each bucket, and the unique tools and strategies it provides, serves every client in a different way, because every client arrives with their own unique and distinctive needs.
This client dominates the nutrition game. This client dominates the mindset game. But something’s been missing.
Beyond Why
Many talk about the power of why these days: your why is your purpose, the cause or belief that drives you. For example, why do you go to the gym? Why do you want to eat healthy? Why do you get out of bed every morning? Why do you want to lose weight? What is your why and why does it matter?
But the thing is, this client is crystal clear on WHY he hired me: He wants to defy a serious diagnosis, for himself, for his family, and for every moment of laughter, love and joy a healthy future promises him with his young daughter. This why, this compelling reason IS what’s helped him create such great success in his program thus far.
The Most Missing Thing in the Be-Healthy Game
As my client and I poked around his breakdown to see if we could find “what’s missing that could make a difference,” he said, “Just yesterday I was feeling like something’s missing.”
I’ve discovered in my work that there’s something most often missing in the be-healthy game, something deeper to tap into beyond the obvious actions of eating clean, working out, rebalancing gut health, shifting our mindset, and even our very compelling reason why we want what we want. This thing is a deeper and more meaningful connection to our BEST and Highest Selves; the person we KNOW ourselves to be, beyond the self-sabotage. It’s like we find ourselves doing things that don’t match who we know ourselves to be, and what we most want in life.
This client’s mastered the healing diet. He’s upleveled his fitness game. His mindset is clear and strong. He’s shifting his white blood cell count, which IS the big goal we’re after! But something’s been missing on a heart-level, and it’s sabotaging his crystal clear and very compelling why he wants to defy the health problem his doctors diagnosed.
I asked him, “What could be possible, if every thing you did, if every choice you made, emanated from your BEST Self, from your desire to BE an expression of your Highest Self? Rather than simply adding another check to the list of actions I recommend you take, that give you the feeling of success, but still leave you disempowered in front of an empty pizza box. What could be different, if the actions you took solely emanated from your desire to be your BEST and Highest Self for no reason other than that?
My questions landed. The landing was palpable, so I recommended he now take time everyday to connect to his BEST, and Highest sense of Self. This IS the single missing thing that most often shows up in the be-healthy game! And of course it would, right, since life asks so much of us every day?
To help him connect to his Highest sense of Self, beyond all the impressive get-healthy success he’s created thus far, I recommended he get outside and reconnect with Nature, that he meditate and slow down, to reconnect with breath, his heart, and what really matters most to him, and that he enjoy the silence of the morning with prayerful verses, quiet time and grounding exercises.
The End-Game Requirement 
As Werner Erhard said,
“Life is a game. In order to have a game, something has to be more important than something else. If what already is, is more important than what isn’t, the game is over. So, life is a game in which what isn’t, is more important than what is.”
When we face a serious medical diagnosis, or a lifetime of failed efforts in creating vibrant health in spite of the many efforts we’ve extended, “what isn’t,” vibrant health, grows in importance, and even urgency, depending on the state of your health and the end-game you most want to, and even need to achieve. I help my clients discover within themselves the almighty missing link, the most missing thing in their be-healthy game, so that they win their end-goal.
How could making every choice you make from the center of your BEST and Highest Self impact you, your life and your Be-healthy game? Excuses would give way. Reasons would disappear. Other’s opinions would no longer matter. Healthy habits and high-performing actions would be the only options that would rise up on your radar!
My client wants to enjoy every year he can with his daughter. That very much matters, to him, and to me… and he needs to reverse an acute diagnosis to realize this goal. And so he plays like a player. Every action he takes bespeaks that of high performer committed to winning, even when he experiences a breakdown! He blows me away.
What do you have at stake, for you, your life and your health? Do you know what is most missing in your be-healthy game? Tell me in the comments below. I’d love to help!
