Practice Makes Perfect? Building habits to take better care of yourself

If you’re on social media, you probably don’t have to scroll too far to find a day-in-the-life video of someone starting their day with a 20-minute stretching routine before drinking their homemade green juice and rushing out of their beautiful home in a matching athletic set to a day full of picture-perfect moments and Instagram-worthy food.

You might find yourself comparing your own morning of hitting the snooze button one too many times and brushing your teeth as you run out the door and thinking: Is that how life is supposed to be? What am I doing wrong?

Sometimes influencers manage to make self-care and wellness look like the perfect daily ritual. It can be easy to fall into thinking that if we could just find the perfect combination of face masks and smoothie bowls, we would have a routine that could keep us healthy, happy, and balanced.

The reality is not quite that simple. On the second episode of Psystem’s original podcast, Ready When You Are, chronic pain & wellness coach Andrew Hartman interviewed Sophie Lovell, an Ontario-based registered holistic nutritionist.

Hartman and Lovell discussed how practicing taking care of your own wellbeing is not necessarily a simple task, “It’s about getting to know [your]self, not just in a way of ‘who you are’, but also about figuring out what practices are meaningful and effective in your own life to keep you healthy,” said Lovell.

In Lovell’s practice as a holistic nutritionist, she works to support and empower her clients to make small personal changes that have the power to make a big impact in the long-term.

In the podcast, Lovell uses the analogy of a steering wheel to illustrate how small, meaningful changes can change people’s lives and overall health. “If you’re driving on a straight road, and your steering wheel is pointed even a little bit to the left, you’re not going to stay on that road for much longer,” explains Lovell, “It’s those little changes you can make that can steer you in a new direction.”  

Now, sticking to a new routine is easier said than done. We’ve all quit enough New Year’s resolutions to know that simply saying you want to make a change is not enough to make that change happen. How are we supposed to stick it out long enough to see the rewards?

The key to changing your life is changing the ‘practice makes perfect’ mindset we’ve all been programmed to believe and shifting to a ‘practice makes progress’ mindset, and Lovell reminds us, “Taking care of yourself isn’t all or nothing,”.

Taking a morning walk every day won’t necessarily mean that your life will transform into an aesthetically pleasing montage of waking up to the sunrise and drinking overpriced iced coffees.

In fact, some days your morning walk might mean putting on layer upon layer of cozy clothes on before you’re ready to brave the Saskatchewan winter outside your window.

Some days, your morning walk might be cancelled because you’re just really in need of an extra half hour of sleep. That doesn’t mean that you’ve failed and now you’re starting from scratch! Place value in consistency and creating habits, not in seeking perfection.

When you’re starting out on your journey to taking better care of yourself, it helps to develop strategies to keep you consistent and accountable.

Hartman kept these strategies in mind while creating Psystem’s innovative new wellness platform, saying “We wanted people to be able to ask, ‘What are the habits I’m trying to build?’, be able to track, ‘How did I feel after that?’ and build that structure to support people and build motivation”.

The platform helps keep users on track by reminding them about their newly formed habits to create a sense of accountability and by making it easy to track your progress towards your goals. The platform also features a journaling functionality to help users map their thoughts and feeling along their wellness journey.

If you are interested in trying to build habits through Psystem’s wellness platform, you can sign up to be a butterfly investor ($10 a month donation) and gain early access plus other perks. Check out more information and all the perks here.

If you are looking to start making small changes in your life, you don’t have to do it alone. You can find support from your circle of friends and family in your own life, or by reaching out to professionals like Lovell and Hartman.

To learn more about Psystem and how coaching can help you stay on track, visit our website or follow us on social media.

To learn Sophie Lovell’s three easy tips to improve your nutritional habits, listen to the full episode.