Building a sustainable lifestyle can feel super overwhelming. We want to immediately feel healthy, happy, energetic, and like we are doing all of the right wellness ‘things’. If you don’t do it right, it can also be pretty draining. You realize how many bad habits you have, how much work it will take to change them, and that practicing wellness is so much more than having all of the latest chic products. It’s an investment into your mindset and habits. To truly create a wellness lifestyle that’s helpful for you, and stick to your healthy habits, you have to know your building blocks.
We’ll get into what building blocks are and why they are important in a bit. But, I want to talk about the mindset we should have around the building blocks, first. Consider thinking about building a wellness lifestyle as a series of “tools” you can develop. This can be a really helpful way to approach making major habit changes. If you’re feeling off, or are having a series of bad days, you can reach into your “wellness toolkit” to help you get back on track. These tools can both help us when we’re down, and can enable us to build healthy habits around them so we can stay on track and feel our best.
Here, we are diving into what building blocks are, and how to understand which ones are the most important and foundational tools in your toolkit. This answer will be different for everyone. But, knowing what your building blocks are will be essential to creating and maintaining the wellness lifestyle you’re looking for.
What is a building block?
A building block is essentially a core piece of your wellness foundation. It’s an absolute must-have for you to function each day in a way that gives you the most energy. These don’t have to be big things like running a marathon, or too specific like needing to have 50 grams of protein at every meal. They are simple and straight-forward essentials for you to start off each day on the right foot. Any, they give you the structure you need to fight off bad days.
For example, mine are super straight-forward, but it took me 4 years to become very clear on what they are. I also had to figure out exactly what combination of building blocks set me up to feel my best. Mine are:
- Getting 8 hours of sleep
- Getting 30 minutes of exercise a day
- Eating 3 healthy and balanced meals
It kind of sounds super obvious right? Yes, anyone on the planet would feel better if they had those 3 things, just like everyone is better off when they have water, food, and shelter. The difference is that these building blocks are my personal absolute musts to having a good day and feeling my best. If I don’t have one of these, then I feel thrown way out of wack. There are lots of good healthy habits out there that we should implement in our daily lifestyles. I use many more than just those 3. But, finding your building blocks is getting very clear on which ones serve as the foundation for your best day.
The trick is in not only finding what building blocks work for you, but what combination work the best together, for you to be successful. This will take some trial and error. Be patient with yourself and pay attention to your body and your energy. When do you feel really great? What didn’t really affect you that much? Learning to pay attention to your body’s signals is key to finding the right building block combination.
Why knowing your building blocks is important
Knowing my building blocks and what weight they carry in my energy and well-being throughout each day is essential in my ability to manage my mental, emotional, and physical health. My building blocks really are my wellness foundation. These are my go-to tools for making sure I am my healthiest, best self. Using these 3 things as tools is where they become so valuable.
“If I feel like I’m in a rut, it’s most likely because one or more of my building blocks are being neglected. When I have low energy, when I’m feeling unmotivated, when my anxiety is spiking or my depression feels heavy… my building blocks are probably off.”
Now, I don’t want to imply that I my energy, motivation, anxiety, or depression is a result of my building blocks, or dependent on them. Life happens. It has ups and downs, and it impacts how we feel and our mental wellness. But, what I have learned is that I can use my 3 building blocks as a way to manage those ups and downs in a healthy way.
When I am feeling down or not myself, I know that I can turn to my building blocks to help. I know what they are and that they work for me. Having healthy, productive mechanisms in place to guide us through life’s tough moments is so important. It’s the difference between getting sucked further in, or turning to a unhealthy coping mechanism that can be damaging.
It’s both a mental routine you have in place, and it’s a practice to put in place everyday to live healthily and sustainably. Not only are my building blocks a tool to managing tough times, but they are also the core part of my daily routine that, when followed, make it easier to navigate or even feel unaffected by life’s rougher parts.
How to find out what your three building blocks are
This part takes some time. You’ll need to find what are the 3 most important tools out of everything in your wellness toolkit, and the right combination that work best for you. This doesn’t mean that other stuff doesn’t work for you. Its just that your top 3 are what you must have to be able to do anything else.
A good way to start experimenting is to just observe what you do and how you feel for a week or two. What really energizes you? Is it having self care time, reading, talking to your friends? What makes you feel your best?
You can also find your building blocks by observing and paying attention to what makes you feel your worst. This is how I found mine. The years after I left college swimming and didn’t work out at all (yikes) were some of my worst. I couldn’t have felt farther away from myself and what I needed to be healthy. I knew in my core that I would have to start working out again to get back on track. A life without moving my body just wasn’t in the cards for me.
I also noticed that my inability to manage stress led to an unhealthy relationship with food. I started developing binge-eating tendencies to cope with my intense job demands and hours. It would feel a little better as I was eating, and then immediately after, so much worse. I was sleeping 2-3 hours a night because I was so stressed, so anxious, and so unhealthy. My brain never had a chance to shut off and rest. Every morning, I was starting from such a drained place that I was essentially zombie-ing through life.
The hugely impactful reaction my body had to not having those 3 building blocks in place is what made me realize that they were my essentials. They were core to my well-being foundation. Spend the next few weeks thinking about what works the best for your body. Or, what is the worst for it. Write those things down, along with the level of impact they have on your day-to-day well-being. Start to narrow those down by the level of impact until you feel really clear about what your top 3 are.
Okay, so when should I use my building blocks?
The last piece of the puzzle is figuring out when you need to use the building blocks so you are feeling your best. Sleep is sleep, but do you feel better when you go to bed at 9 or at 11pm? Do you need a morning, mid-day, or afternoon workout? How often and when works best for you to eat to have enough fuel for the day?
Ask yourself these questions for your own building blocks. For example, I need my workout to happen first thing in the morning for me to be the most energized as I can be. It is still great if I workout after work, but it doesn’t work as well for me unless if I do it first thing. It gives me the mental boost, energy, and confidence I need to start the rest of my day on the right foot (fueled by healthy, nutritious food, and a good nights sleep!)
Timing is key, and it gives us the information we need to organize our daily routines around our building blocks. The 3 building blocks are the core to our wellness foundation. So, they should be the centerpieces of our daily routines. Prioritize your building blocks and organize everything else around them. If you try to fit them in to what you are already doing, you’re subconsciously telling yourself that they are second in priority. Your building blocks won’t be able to effectively serve you that way, and you won’t notice much change.
Re-think your routine with your core building blocks first. Understand when you need to do them to feel best, and then fit the rest in. You’ll feel better, and have more energy to tackle everything else.
Learn to love your 3 building blocks, use them as tools to help you, and have the best day ever!
This post was originally published at agirlinprogress.com. To check out the original post, click here.
P.S. To learn more about building blocks, check out my post about how I made a major lifestyle change using them!
