How to Change the Way You See Your Body, Part II
In my last blog post, I wrote about why we often attach so much importance to our appearance—and how we can start to appreciate our bodies as they are.
In this post, I invite you to try out another practice that has helped my clients—and me!—improve our long-term relationship with our bodies.
Here goes:
Rate your relationship with your body on a scale from 1 to 10, 1 being you hate your body, and 10 being you feel beautiful, healthy, and happy all the time.
If you come down toward the lower end of the scale, there are 2 ways to tackle this:
1. By changing your internal perceptions of your body, as we explored in Part I
2. By making external changes that help you feel better in your skin, which I’ll explain below.
For some of us, the external changes might feel easier than the internal ones, at least initially. For others of us, the internal changes may be where we want to start.
The important thing here is to choose whichever approach feels most accessible to you right now—and to know that you can also practice both at the same time.
Baby-stepping your way to a new relationship with your body
If you’re ready to take some external steps toward improving your relationship with your body, it’s best to start small. Why?
If you make your goals too big to start with, there’s a much bigger chance that you won’t be able to live up to your expectations. This is actually the number one reason most extreme diets and exercise regimes fail: when we don’t live up to our high expectations, we end up feeling bad about ourselves. And when we feel bad, we tend to eat more, exercise less, and then feel even worse.
So when it comes to making external changes in how you care for your body, the key is to move from a negative spiral to a positive one. How?
1. By appreciating the beauty that already exists.
2. By setting small, manageable goals.
3. By acknowledging yourself when you achieve those goals (which empowers you to set bigger goals down the road).
How does this look in practice?
If your eating habits are a source of your negative perception of your body, think about the baby steps you could take to improve your relationship with food.
For example, commit to eating when you’re hungry, when you’re sitting down, when you're not distracted. Or commit to eating one healthy meal a day.
If you feel bad about your body because you’re not exercising, then think about the baby steps you can take to move on a regular basis. Can you take a 10-minute walk after dinner? Play with your dog for 15 minutes a day? Ride your bike to work once or twice a week?
Once you zero in on the baby steps you want to take, think about what you need to do in order to integrate them into your life. For example, do you need to put your phone in another room while you’re eating? Wake up earlier to give yourself time to bike to work?
Do your best, track your progress daily and reward yourself every time you take a baby step. What do these rewards look like? I like to treat myself to a massage or a new piece of clothing, get my hair blow-dried, or buy myself a smoothie.
If you find that feels challenging to follow through on your goals on a daily basis, then your steps are too big. Go back and make them smaller. If it still feels too difficult to baby step it on your own, find an accountability partner who can help you stay committed.
Do you want to learn more about how to improve your relationship with your body? In my book, Life Launch, I write about more ways to shift your negative thought patterns around your appearance, along with other practical yet profound ways to feel better. Download a sample chapter here.