Becoming a Wellness Guinea Pig with Monica Woodhams of 45 Fairmount
Episode 187: Show Notes
Today on the show we welcome Monica Woodhams. Monica is a success coach & lifestyle expert with over half a decade of experience in the blogging industry. She assists influencers and creative entrepreneurs in conquering the work-life balance needed for success and is also the host of the Influencer Lifestyle Podcast. Today we speak with Monica about about health and success and how the two go hand in hand. As business owners, and especially as women business owners, we have a tendency to want to accomplish great things. Taking care of yourself, mentally and physically, is not something that you can just check off your list and it’s done. It is an ongoing practice and because of this, we tend not to prioritize it because the benefits are not immediate.
Listen on your favorite podcast player
We want to see the clients coming in, the money coming in and your health is not necessarily a tangible accomplishment within your business. In your business, you are proactive about so many things, so why are you not proactive about your personal life and personal health? In this episode, Monica shares with us the benefits of slowing down and how taking care of yourself leads to added self-worth and added confidence in your business. Monica gives us four tangible steps to taking better care of ourselves and how to turn personal care into a habit. In this fast-paced world with burnouts and breakdowns around the bend, there is no better time to look after yourself so that you can in turn, look after your business and those around you.
Instant Gratification and Checking In With Yourself
As we mentioned earlier, with health and fitness, the results are not instant and this is why we often do not prioritize it. So, what can we do to ensure there is an instant reward that might give us more motivation? Monica recommends that we check in with ourselves after we do something for our personal health. For example, if you take three minutes to meditate, before you dash off to begin your day, take a quick moment to introspect. Ask yourself, “how do I feel now in comparison to how I felt before?” Congratulate yourself for that instant feel good. We often make assumptions in our own mind believing,“We can’t do this” or “We can’t do that.” Monica advises us to focus on what we can do rather that what we can’t and to drop those assumptions when it comes to wellness and your personal life. At the end of the day, everything is tied together and by not giving attention to your personal wellness, you may in fact be limiting the growth and success of your business.
Focus On The Habit and Get An Accountability Partner
There are some aspects of personal care we just don’t like. Whether it’s getting in the car in the freezing cold and driving ten minutes to the gym or taking a crowded bus to your yoga class – there are often things we don’t enjoy that take away from the workout or practice itself. But if you can focus on the aspects you don’t like and start to accept them as a stepping stone to the great feeling after your workout – it will get easier! Another thing you can do to get your booty off the couch is to have an accountability partner. If you tell a friend you are meeting her at a certain time, you’re never going to text her and say, “I just don’t feel like climbing in my car.” You can tell yourself that, we’re okay with telling ourselves that, but we wouldn’t tell that to our friend who is waiting at the gym for us. Another incentive is of course money. If you are not paying for a class, the likelihood of you going might be less. But if you’ve already paid upfront for a class, you sure as hell are going to get yourself there so you don’t waste those pennies! If you can set yourself up for success and accountability in the early stages, it becomes easier to make it a habit. Bars, power yoga, hot yoga, CrossFit – it’s easy to get caught up in whatever trend you think you’re supposed to be doing. You need to find a practice that fits you and you don’t need to be doing everything. If just walking on the treadmill every morning is what you absolutely love, then stick with it!
Nutrition, Cake Friends and Accountability To Yourself
Like a lot of women out there, Abbie and Emylee both love food but both have a poor relationship with food. Emylee doesn’t eat for days at a time and then binges and Abbie just eats too much all the time! Abbie and Emylee are both trying to break these cycles and make healthier choices but it is difficult when they are not surrounded by people making those conscious decisions too. For example, those friends that want to eat cake with you all the darn time. Monica also loves food and although it may sound cliché, she is all about balance. If you can be accountable to yourself for eating healthy and feeling good all day, then you are not going to feel guilty when your friend offers you a piece of chocolate cake. Again, it comes down to being accountable to yourself and ensuring you are maintaining a healthy diet. Feeling good, about yourself and having a positive outlook on everything around you, all starts with making the right choices. Balance and accountability, are key!
Monica’s Comfort Food Hacks For A Guilt Free Experience
It all comes down to you showing up as your best self. Monica’s hack is all about setting up her own healthy comfort food, so that if she is having a bad day, she can eat it and not feel awful and guilty afterward. So plan for a healthy comfort food, have it in your fridge or your cupboard, or find a restaurant that serves it, so you can be ready for a bad day and you’re not left feeling guilty after eating a bag of potato chips or a box of cookies. Or both. Find your own healthy comfort meal alternative and reach for that, rather than resorting to whatever sugary, salty, carbacious food is around. Guilt is the lowest vibration we can be at and nothing really gets done with guilt. Talking about it is a start, so if you are seeing these habits in yourself, start to talk about them, with a friend or someone you trust. These conversations are important and talking about them and acknowledging them and the guilt associated with them, can be a healthy step toward breaking bad habits.
How Making Healthy Choices Can Lead To Success in Business
Monica strongly believes that self-worth is tied to your net worth. If you want to sell a product and you don’t believe in yourself, how are you then going to show a potential customer that they should believe in it too? You need to believe in yourself more than a potential customer would. When you believe in yourself, you believe in taking care of yourself. You can take better care of people if you are your full energetic self. If you are burnt out, you are probably resenting other people in your life. Monica herself did burnout in the corporate world and in her own business. But when she started to treat herself like a wellness guinea pig, she started to see that these “woo-woo” people where on to something. There is something about going a little slower, being a little bit “selfish” and not feeling guilty about things like sleeping in! Let go of guilt and people pleasing and know at the end of the day, you need to take care of yourself. Focusing on personal wellness enables you to experience huge success both in business as well as your nine to five. It’s also important to try and not make your personal care a to-do list thing. You should be in the moment and just enjoy it. Personal care doesn’t have to be yoga, or pilates, or meditation – it can be something as simple as a walk around the block, making your own deliciously healthy smoothies or dancing crazy in the kitchen with your kids. You need to have fun, remove some of the pressure and remember to live girl!
Why Everything Comes Back To Gratitude
Spending time appreciating where you are in your life and what you are doing is really important. Even if you are not yet where you want to be, it doesn’t mean where you are is not great for you! You get to decide who you are, you get to decide if you want to spend an extra ten minutes cuddling with your puppy, you get to decide what to appreciate in your own life. But gratitude also comes with slowing down. Slow down so you can appreciate the small, wonderful things in your life. The world is not going to come crashing down if you spend an extra ten minutes putting Fruit Loops on your fingers to make your daughter laugh. Those things are important, so appreciate them and chill for a second! Often in our businesses, our comfort zone is being in that stressed state. We don’t know how to chill and relax. And you have to train your body to create a new sense of normalcy so that high-stress is no longer the comfort zone you have built it up to be. This is really hard, so be okay with it being hard and appreciate it being hard!
Quote This
When you believe in yourself, you believe in taking care of yourself.
—Monica Woodhams
Highlights
Instant Gratification and Checking In With Yourself. [0:03:40.1]
Focus On The Habit and Get An Accountability Partner. [0:03:40.1]
Nutrition, Cake Friends and Accountability To Yourself. [0:11:40.1]
Monica’s Comfort Food Hacks For A Guilt Free Experience. [0:16:00.1]
How Making Healthy Choices Can Lead To Success in Business. [0:24:39.1]
Why Everything Comes Back To Gratitude. [0:30:15.1]
#TalkStrategyToMe [0:36:40.6]
Be a wellness guinea pig on yourself.
Check in with yourself after meditation.
Put your business hat on and determine what you need.
Treat your business like a business, not a hobby.
ON TODAY’S SHOW
Monica Woodhams
45Fairmount
Monica Woodhams is the lifestyle guru that assists influencers and creative entrepreneurs in conquering the work-life balance needed for success. Monica has developed a distinct template for entrepreneurial women to elevate their businesses through the creation of programs and services for their existing audience. Monica works with each individual to create a unique and customizable program/ service for their business to flourish and to drastically increase their personal income. The delicate work-life balance of the boss babes of today is maneuvered and manipulated to make the business work for you, not the other way around. Monica has completed the 16 Month Coaching Training through the Divine Living Academy in 2016, as well as completing the Executive Development Program at Neiman Marcus, where she worked as an assistant buyer in couture for NeimanMarcus.com and BergdorfGoodman.com. Monica has recently completed the 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training and Health & Nutrition Coach Certification through the Institute of Integrative Nutrition.
KEY TOPICS
Self-care, Self-worth, Personal care, Burnout, Stress, Health and wellness, Health hacks, Comfort food
