Can you believe we’ve been Moving Toward Health together for an entire year!? We have covered so many topics in the categories of exercise, nutrition, mindset, and lifestyle to help you improve your health every day that I can only imagine how much different your life looks today than when we started. 

As I was considering what to write about for this article, I started to think about how much my own life has changed over the last year and how my definition of health has changed too. 

When I started this column, I started it based on the premise that health is not a destination, but rather a state of being that we are continuously moving toward and reflecting upon. Health is not something we achieve and then never have to pay attention to again. Living a healthy lifestyle requires continuous attention and investment of our time and energy. 

As we go through the process of actively moving towards health, we will realize that our beliefs about what it means to be healthy and what practices we want to incorporate into our lives will evolve. This evolution happens both in the short term and in the long term, and may happen as quickly as changing our food choices from breakfast to lunch. It also may happen as slowly as reflecting on our definition of health from one year to the next. 

Recently, while brainstorming important qualities of culture for a new company we are building, I realized that my definition of health has evolved. When I wrote out what health means to me today in relation to the culture in my company, it came to me as follows: “We strive to live in an optimized state of being by identifying where we currently are, rediscovering where we want to go, and taking the next step forward.” 

While this is similar to the definition I started this column with a year ago, it is also quite different. 

This evolved definition of what health means to me focuses more on the actions we are taking in each stage of the process. I see it as a circle, where we set goals, take action on them, reflect on the progress, rediscover our desired destination when we forget or get frustrated, and then take the next aligned action step again. 

It shows that the process is more dynamic and has more opportunities to change our mind, or remember to stay the course. It encompasses the outcome goals we desire to achieve, while honoring the smaller process goals and milestones along the way. 

While reflection is important, I have come to believe that it is only able to encompass its full power if we also take action on the back end, and continuously strive to live in our most optimized state of being. Combining the actions of setting goals and working towards them while allowing ourselves to reflect and evolve will enhance our ability to live in an optimized state of being. 

We must be able to hold space for all of them at once, while also being able to discern between which is most important at this moment. Allow health to be dynamic, allow yourself to change your actions, and allow yourself to evolve as you go. 

Fighting to stay the same is the only thing that will hold you back. 

Xoxo

Coach Maggi