Photo by Karolina Grabowska
In short: A clear vision for your health is a picture, in your own words, of how you want to feel and live in your body. It gives you motivation on the days you have none, keeps you focused when distractions arrive, shows you where to begin, and helps you set goals you can really reach. You can write yours in a quiet half hour, and I’ll show you how below.
You decide, on a Sunday evening, that this time you’re going to get healthier. On Monday you have a salad for lunch. On Tuesday you go for a walk. On Wednesday there’s a deadline at work, someone brings in a cake, and by Thursday you can’t quite remember what it was you had decided. Nothing went wrong, really. There was simply nothing to hold on to.
“Getting healthier” is a wish, and a wish is easily blown away. What helps is a clear vision: knowing what healthy means for you, in your life, and why it matters to you.
What is a clear vision for your health?
It’s a description of the life you’d like to live in your body. It isn’t a number or a clothes size. It’s what your days look and feel like: how you wake up, how you eat, how you move, how you sleep, what you’re able to do and who you do it with.
“I want to lose weight” is vague, and it says nothing about why. “I want to climb the stairs to my flat with the shopping and still have breath to say hello to my neighbour” is a vision. So is “I want to wake up rested and feel calm when I sit down to eat.” You can see it, and you know at once whether what you’re about to do takes you closer or further away.
What are the benefits of a clear vision?
It motivates and inspires you
A clear vision is something to walk towards. When you know what you’re working for, and you can picture it, the small efforts of the day make sense. Chopping vegetables on a tired evening is easier when it belongs to something you care about.
It helps you stay focused
There will always be distractions: a new diet everyone is talking about, a busy week, a friend who insists you have another glass. With a vision, you have a simple question to ask: does this fit the life I’m building? You don’t need to decide everything from the beginning each time.
It gives you purpose and direction
A vision helps you make informed decisions about how you live and put your actions in order. You stop trying to do everything at once, and you know what comes first.
It shows you where to begin
When your vision is clear, you see which parts of your life need the most care, and you can make changes there, where they will count. If your vision is to be fit and strong, you might look first at how you eat and how much you move. If your vision is to feel less stressed and more at peace, you might begin with meditation or yoga. Two people, two visions, two different first steps. That’s bio-individuality: there is no single right way for everyone.
It keeps you on track when things get hard
It’s easy to slip back into old patterns, or to feel discouraged when a difficult week arrives. With a specific goal in mind, you find your way back sooner. One evening on the sofa with a bag of crisps is only one evening, and tomorrow you carry on.
It helps you set realistic goals
When you concentrate on what matters to you, your plans become meaningful and within reach. You’re no longer setting yourself up to fail with expectations nobody could meet. You choose steps that suit your real life, and each one you take gives you the confidence for the next.
I made a short video about this, you can watch it below.
How do you find your own vision?
Take paper and a pen, and half an hour when nobody needs you. Imagine yourself one year from now, on an ordinary day, feeling well. Then answer these questions as your future self, in the present tense:
How do I feel when I wake up?
What do I eat, and how do I feel at the table?
How do I move during the day, and what does my body let me do?
How do I sleep?
What do I do when I’m stressed?
Why does all this matter to me? Who or what is it for?
Read what you’ve written and underline the sentences that touch you most. Bring them together in three or four lines. That’s your vision.
If you’d like to give it more room, you can make a vision board and hang it where you’ll see it every day, or write the full letter from your future self.
What do you do with your vision on an ordinary day?
A vision in a drawer doesn’t do much. Here is how to keep it alive.
Keep it in sight. On the fridge, in your diary, as the first page of your notebook.
Choose one area. Pick the part of your vision that matters most right now, and leave the rest for later.
Choose one small step. A glass of water when you get up. A walk after lunch. Vegetables on half your plate in the evening. Small enough that you’ll do it on a bad day too.
Look back once a week. On Sunday evening, ask yourself what brought you closer, and what you’d like to try next week.
When you’re ready for the next stage, how to achieve your health goals takes you through it, and why change is hard explains what’s going on when part of you resists. You’ll also find ideas for small steps in my questions and answers on building healthy habits.
A clear vision won’t do the work for you. But it gives the work a reason, and it gives you a direction on the days when you’ve lost yours. Make your choices with it in mind, one after another, and your health and wellbeing will follow.
Frequently asked questions
What is a health vision?
It is a clear picture, in your own words, of how you want to feel and live in your body: your energy, your sleep, how you eat and move, what you are able to do. It describes a life, where a goal describes a result.
How is a vision different from a goal?
The vision is the direction, the goals are the steps. “I want to feel strong and steady on my feet” is a vision. “I walk for twenty minutes after lunch on weekdays” is a goal that serves it.
What if I lose my motivation?
It happens to everyone. Read your vision again, choose the smallest possible step and do that one today. A vision is there precisely for the days when you do not feel like it.
How often should I come back to my vision?
Keep it where you can see it and read it once a week. Look at it more closely every few months, or when your life changes, and adjust it. It is allowed to grow with you.
When should I talk to my doctor?
Before you make big changes to how you eat or exercise, if you have a health condition or take medication, and whenever you notice symptoms that worry you or do not go away. A vision goes alongside medical care and never replaces it.
Would you like some help?
Finding your vision, and then turning it into what you put on your plate and how you spend your week, is where we begin in my group programmes in nutrition and health, such as Six Tuesdays in Montignac. If you’d like to hear when the next group opens, write to me at hello@catherinepolet.coach.
Would you rather work one to one? I also coach online. Book a free 20-minute call, and tell me how you’d like to feel a year from now. It’s the first question I’ll ask you anyway.
About Catherine
I’m Catherine Polet, a holistic nutrition health coach, yoga and autogenic training teacher for more than 30 years, author and speaker. I help people find a way of eating and living that suits their own body, online in English, French, Spanish and German, and in person in Southwest France.
