"Labelling" Yourself may be Your Biggest Barrier to a Healthier Lifestyle

"Labelling" is a habit in itself. It becomes second nature sometimes to put a label on ourselves. But is that helping?? It CAN certainly help us (if it's positive and realistic). However, in our modern world of comparing ourselves to someone else in MOST things we do each day, it is creating a BIG BARRIER in our individual health and wellbeing.

Helen Hall (UK professional with a variety of background including fitness, massage, vascular and lymphatic circulations speciality etc... ) says it best:

(To paraphrase) - If you go for a walk and run a little bit at some point; You're a RUNNER. We have this notion that in order to "be a runner" we have to run so far or so fast, or do 'x' number of races... No! If you run (slow, fast, a tiny bit or really far) - You're a RUNNER.

When I first heard her say that I was fist pumping going "YES!!!" The number of conversations with clients of the years who constantly put themselves down (for NO reason other than comparison) is mind blowing. And guess what? Most of those clients didn't stick with running for very long.

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That's just one quick example. Let me share some from my clients and experiences to continue to aim to help you see how, as always, our mind can be our biggest barrier or our biggest ally.

"I'm an insomniac"

One example is from a post with a client of mine who was a self-diagnosed insomniac. She used that word often when describing her sleep. HOWEVER, with a simple tracking exercise using a calendar and smiley faces she learned that MOST nights she actually DOES sleep better than she thought! And yet, she kept LABELLING herself as an insomniac which was only causing more stress on the nights she wasn't sleeping well.

The more we say, out loud and internally, "I am [insert concern, issue, disease, etc]" the MORE WE LIVE that way and it DOES become our reality.

"I can't do 'x'...."

Another example that's smattered across MANY clients (especially initially) is the "I CAN'T do 'x'" label. The thoughts and words that say "I can't do" something is a bigger barrier to most of us, than ANY physical ability and/or inability. I think of the participants of my two "Redefining Strong" groups each week. 2x weekly, participants in each group come for a 30min, general strength and mobility session for ages 60+. It doesn't take long before they begin to realize all the things THEY CAN DO, simply because they either are now TRYING those things (vs thinking about them) OR because they're "allowing themselves" to do something by modifying it to MEET THEIR CURRENT ABILITIES. It doesn't take long before that modification progresses and the client very quickly no longer has to even think about the movement.

"I've 'never' been good at..."

A label that ALWAYS shocks me is when someone says "I've NEVER been good at [insert exercise, activity, sport etc]". My question is always; "Have you ever TRIED TO GET 'good at it' for any period of time?" and the answer is 99% of the time; "NO". Here we have a label attached to something, that really DOESN'T EVEN NEED A LABEL!! If you don't PRACTICE something or do something REGULARLY, why would you be good at it? In other words, there is NO expectations for you to be, nor should there be any expectation from yourself. Meaning there's NO PRESSURE!!! Experience it. Enjoy it. Learn from it instead of judging and labelling yourself with it.

The Diet Label

Here comes arguably a controversial label; Diets. "I'm a vegan", "I'm a Carnivore", "I eat Keto"... In this example, I'm talking to those folks who are lost in their nutrition and health, and how "they should eat". Labelling yourself in this way puts you into a "diet box" where there is "rules and restrictions" that you will try to impose on yourself for better or worse. What this labelling also does is it has us practicing the "either or" mentality. It's either this or that - and it can't possibly be anything in between, right? Why does how humans eat "need" a label? Simple; Marketing. Maybe, community (for better or worse)? The label nutrition USED TO HAVE if we go back far enough was "SURVIVAL". You ate a certain way because that's what was available (and hopefully safe) to eat. But there was no comparison or labelling. You ate to survive - or you died.

"My kid is a [insert sport] player"

We can argue that labelling kids is happening in sports, for example. Gone are the days of multi-sport athletes playing a summer sport and a winter sport. Now, parents have their kids specializing from ridiculously young ages in ONE sport and YEAR ROUND. I'm not going to argue all the negatives with that in this post, but what I will argue is the LABELLING argument again. Rather than being "an athlete" kids are now "a hockey player", "a soccer player", "a basketball player"... All of this, subconciously engraining labelling into our kids; "You're either 'this' or 'that'".

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If we create a mindspace where we can just BE and we can LET GO of labelling ourselves, we most likely will find a more relaxed, less stressed approach to our health habits.