4 Tips To Getting Healthy When Your Spouse Isn't On Board
4 Tips To Getting Healthy When Your Spouse Isn't On Board
The #1 obstacle nobody talks about
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Ok, let’s get to today’s post!
Your Wife Doesn’t Want To Follow Your New Diet
Today’s post is inspired by traction on this week from earlier this week:
This is the reality that many people face:
You want to make changes in your health habits, but your wife/husband isn’t interested in making the same changes you are.
If you’re not careful, these situations can create enormous resentment, conflict and stress in the home.
But when navigated correctly, then can strengthen relationships and improve the lives of everyone involved.
Here are 4 tips from my own experience and 3 success stories from my community:
#1 Communicate Your Conviction
My wife thought I was crazy when I signed up for my first 70.3.
But I spoke up about how important it was to me and made it clear how committed I was to my new goal.
I knew that doing a 70.3 would require a huge change in behavior.
I’d have to become a regular at the pool, spend my weekends riding my bike and probably make changes to my diet.
If I didn’t make her aware of how serious I was, I knew I’d face unnecessary battles along the way.
Once I communicated my conviction and set clear expectations, she was happy to support me.
#2 You Can’t Make Them Join You
A huge mistake I made early in my fitness journey: getting on my wife’s case when she wasn’t exercising as much as me or eating as clean as me.
I expected her to have the same goals and desires as me.
I dropped that bad habit when I took on triathlon.
An even better example is when I ate fully Carnivore for a month in January 2021.
There was no chance my wife was joining me, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t do it.
I vocalized my commitment and took complete responsibility for my effort.
I handled cooking meat for dinner and she’d make separate sides for herself.
I owned my goal and removed all thinking that what she ate (or bought at the grocery store) had any impact on me.
Mindset Check: expecting people around you to create perfect circumstances for your goals is a self-sabotaging victim mindset.
#3 Get Creative With Ways You Can Improve Together
Here’s a small habit change that had an enormous ripple effect on my relationship with my wife:
“No phones, just us”
This was an idea I came up with where we’d put our phones away at dinner so we could spend more quality time together.
We committed to the effort together, turned it into a catch phrase and made a game out of it.
Not being on our phones during dinner organically spread to other parts of our evenings and helped us become much more connected as a couple.
We stopped sitting on the couch with us both mindlessly scrolling our phones.
We got into board games and even started playing chess against one another.
And it all started by not being on our phones for 30 minutes during dinner.
Mindset Check: If you’re going to recruit others to join you, it’s best to start small and make it easy to participate.
Going on morning walks or weekend hikes are 2 examples of ways to get your family involved.
It doesn’t need to be anything crazy. The goal is to create habits everyone can build on.
#4 Trust Your Process
At the end of the day, you are making a certain change because you believe it will help you.
Any negative emotions related to people not joining you must be met head on with equally positive emotions of faith in your effort.
It’s important to operate from a place of trust that what you are doing will make a significant, positive impact on your life over time.
Mindset Check: Develop such convincing discipline, patience and confidence through your efforts that the people around you actively ask to join.
Let your actions speak for themselves and don’t waste any time trying to convince people.
They’ll come around when they’re ready.
3 Examples From My Community
Here are 3 great replies to my original tweet:
From Gordo on an athlete of his changing family nutrition.
From Howard Luks on patients of his changing family activity and diet.
From Brandon on his family following suit.
And remember: this is not an overnight the process for them.
The same way it’s not an overnight process for you.
Lead through action, be a positive light and live a life that others want to be a part of.