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Hello and welcome to The Own Youn Health podcast, I'm Cyndi Lynne, and I can't wait to help you step into your health power. Today we're going to talk about getting past complicated. So many people don't make health or life changes because it's too hard, it's too complicated.
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They feel like there's too many new things to learn. Too many rules that you have to follow. And so often they just throw up their hands and say, you know what? Too complicated. I can't do it. And even if they try for a short time to follow the rules or to follow the complicated processes, they give up because it's just not sustainable over time.
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The thing of it is, is that you have to put in the time and then be willing to get past complicated. Anytime we learn something new, there's going to be that - a learning curve. It brings to mind my whole sourdough journey, if you will.
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I really wanted to learn to make sourdough bread. I don't tolerate gluten well, and I've read over and over again that sourdough breads can be easier to digest. And so I made it a goal of mine, probably two years ago now, that I was going to learn to make a sourdough.
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Well, I found somebody who would send me some starter and send me step by step instructions, and I'm talking four pages of them. Now already, if you make sourdough, you might be thinking, it's not that complicated.
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It's flour and water. What is there to that? If you haven't made sourdough, you might think, oh, my gosh, I could never do that. It's so complicated. There's so many things you have to do. But here's the thing. It is when you learn it.
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So when I first started learning it, I did step by step, hour by hour, what I was supposed to do, measuring things out carefully. And the reason that I had to do that is because I was learning sourdough, a very physical, active, palpable kind of process, from paper, right?
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So then I got a little bit smarter and I joined a Facebook forum for sourdough bakers. And there was some videos on there. There was some videos on YouTube. And I could see what people were doing. But I'd get the same mixed messages.
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People would be flabbergasted. It was a sourdough for beginners. People would be flabbergasted because they would say, it's just flour and water. Why are you making this so complicated? Well, for those of us who didn't know what was supposed to what that flour and water was supposed to feel like, what it was supposed to smell like, how much it was supposed to change.
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We needed all of those instructions until we could develop the feel for it, until I knew what it was supposed to smell like, how long I could leave it in the fridge, how long I could actually ferment loaves. Because for me, that was the real key is a very long fermentation process.
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So here's the thing. Once I learned that, once I did all the complicated and I integrated that information into my brain and into my baking process, sourdough is no longer complicated for me.
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If I would have thought that that every time I wanted to make a loaf of bread, I would have to do all those four pages of instructions step by step, exactly like that, I would have probably given up. And that would have been a real loss because it didn't take that long to get past complicated.
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The same is true for people learning new exercise or people learning new ways of eating. Is seems very complicated at first. I have clients who I actually ask to weigh their food.
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And this is a real bizarre thing, because for many years, weighing and measuring everything was the fad, and that's what you did. And then it shifted into the don't measure anything. And if you have to measure all the time, you'll give up and you won't do it.
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And people have lost track, or some of them have never learned what 4 ounces of steak or 6 ounces of spinach or whatever it may be, what that actually looks like, what that means.
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And so for some people who don't have that inherent information or their understanding of the nutrition of what's in their food, what the nutrient content is, how much protein is in something, how how fresh the vitamins are in one type of prepared food versus another, it is complicated at first.
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And if you stick around long enough to learn, then it's no longer complicated. It's just part of your knowledge and part of how you live. And that's really fundamentally the whole concept behind me being an integrative life and health coach.
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The purpose is to guide you, to help you learn what it is you need to know so that you can fully integrate new behaviors, new practices into your life, so that they're no longer so complicated, so that you don't give up right as you're about to start getting the reward.
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Once you've integrated the info and the behavior, it's not complicated at all. You've gotten past complicated. So how do we do that first of all, set clear goals. So often people go out in search of information and processes and that step by step without knowing exactly what it is they want.
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So we'll go back to the sourdough example. For me, it was real clear. I didn't want to just avoid using packaged yeast. I wanted to create something that I could ferment for a long time. Like my loaves are in the refrigerator for four or five days before I bake them.
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If my goal was to just bake without yeast, that would have been a different process. The same is true for exercise. What is your goal? Are you exercising for your health or are you exercising to train for a particular type of physical performance, a sport or some something that you want your body to do specifically. Are you interested in nutrition for weight loss or are you looking for nutrition to build muscle or nutrition to reduce inflammation?
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Two very, very different things, often opposite, right? So the first, first step is to have a really clear goal in what it is you want to achieve with a particular practice or something new that you want to learn. The second is to pick your mentor.
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Now, if I'd have known now what I knew then at the start of my sourdough journey, I would have done a whole lot more with YouTube videos and I would have actually looked for somebody in town close to me that I could have gone and baked with, where I could have poked the dough and felt it and smelled the starter and that would have expedited the process tremendously because doing it primarily from paper and description, although the instructions were impeccably written, just made it that much more difficult in doing such a hands on technique.
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So if you pick your mentor, you can pick people, you can pick written instructions, YouTubes, and the critical piece in that is picking a mentor that matches your style. So if you're looking for written materials and you need lots and lots of detail, that's the style, that's the, the mentor, if you will, that you're going to look for.
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If you are looking on YouTube for videos for what you're trying to learn, look around, find someone whose voice you like to listen to. Find someone who seems to be doing what they're doing for the same reason that you are, don't just stop at the first person you pick.
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If you're going for a live model for a coach or for someone who's going to, to teach you a process, walk you through something, find a personality that matches you. Find someone that you truly want to work with and learn from and whose interest and goals are similar to what yours is.
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Dive in, learn with that mentor. Keep your goals in mind. And then once you've got it, get rid of the whole story about it being complicated. Because very often after we have it, we continue the story in our mind about this is so complicated and this is so hard and how am I going to fit it in my day, and where's my piece of paper?
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Once you've got it, acknowledge what you've learned and then be willing to take that information that you've integrated into your life, and build on it, and let it grow and let it expand. We do this with yoga practices often.
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You may have a favorite yoga practice you do in the morning or in the evening, but once you know that, once you've really integrated yoga into your day as a practice, you pay attention to what it is your body needs and you adjust.
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When I bake now, I pay attention to what that dough needs. Because it's drier and colder in the house, or because it's warm and humid. You pay attention. When your body when you travel, you won't necessarily eat the exact same foods that you eat when you're at home, and you won't eat them at the same time.
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And you might need something completely different than what you normally have. But once you have the information integrated, once it's a part of who you are then, you're free to let the complication go and listen to what your body needs to get you to your goals.
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If I can be of any help with any of this, referring to resources or mentoring you through a particular type of change, coaching you. Absolutely reach out. There is a link below. Email me and let me know what you need.
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I'll be happy to help. In the meantime, and until next time, let's go out and own it.
