One of our greatest frustrations with healthy living is dealing with the normal obstacles of life – the things that can stand in the way of our best-laid plans. My clients are often eager and ready to come up with their βplan A.β The βif everything works as it shouldβ plan. The βthis is how I really want things to goβ plan. I also encourage them to come up with contingency plans. What if everything doesnβt work as it should? What if things donβt go how you really wish they would?
Having a contingency plan helps prevent the all-or-nothing feelings that can come into play when we donβt seem to be able to make plan A work. If plan A is all we have in our healthy tool belt, then we end up defeated when it wonβt work for one reason or another. Your plan failedβ¦guess you canβt be healthy today.
Not so!
Life is often not going to work out the way you hope, so be prepared! Have a plan for when the plan doesnβt work. Itβs not defeatist β itβs realistic. Have a contingency plan. This is how I usually describe them:
Plan A:Β This is your best-case scenario. It is the plan that is designed to help you meet your health goals and fit into your (and your familyβs) lifestyle at least half the time. If you make a plan A that rarely ends up ever working, itβs probably not the right plan A for you. Remember that itβs okay to try changes out before committing to them (in fact you should!) and itβs okay if a change doesnβt work for you. Keep looking for your best fit!
Plan B: This is your βoh shoot, I didnβt have time for plan Aβ or βwe canβt afford plan A right nowβ or ______insert reason plan A doesnβt work this time_____. This is not as ideal of an outcome as plan A, but still keeps you on track with a decent second-best. Ask yourself what might stand in the way of your plan A, and consider how you might adjust. Plan B options sometimes require a little bit of advance preparation, but then they have your back when needed.
Plan C:Β This is your hail Mary. The βwellβ¦nothing went the way I planned so we will do the best we can with what we have today.β Sometimes you actually have a third-best option, and sometimes your plan C is just to let it go and try again tomorrow. Either way, make it an intentional choice, not an automatic response to a plan A roadblock.Β PlanΒ to take a day off if plans A and B fall through, and donβt feel bad if they did. This mentally helps us stay away from thought patterns like βwell, I didnβt complete plan A today, so I guess Iβm not being healthy anymore.β It sounds dramatic when you say it out loud, but itβs the way a lot of our brains think. I canβt tell you how many stories Iβve heard from clients about healthy changes they did great withβ¦until that one day, then they gave up since they had βbroken their streak.β
Here are some examples of contingency plans my clients have made:
Cooking at home
Plan AΒ (best-case-scenario, works at least half the time): Make a meal plan each week and cook at least 5 dinners at home.
Plan B (second-best option, has your back with a little advance preparation): This client felt her most likely roadblock would be not having time to make the dinner on her meal plan, so her plan B was to buy pre-cooked salmon fillets and a vegetable/red potato medley to keep in the freezer so she could always have a microwave back-up option if she got stuck in traffic on the way home from work.
Plan C (do the best you can with what youβve got, no preparation required): If she comes home late and her kids have a nighttime activity, she usually needs to bring something home or take the kids out on the way. We selected 3 different restaurants that her kids would like and where everyone could customize their own healthful option.
Strength Training
Plan A:Β Go to the gym before work to strength train three times per week.
Plan B:Β This clientβs gym is very busy in the afternoon, so his biggest roadblock would be getting his workout in if he missed going in the morning. If he didnβt make it to the gym before work, we selected a Youtube body weight workout he could do at home in the evening.
Plan C:Β If he did not want to work out in the evening when he got home, he could either try going to the gym a different morning that week, or take a day off and try again on his next scheduled gym day.
The point is, that making the plan ahead of time helps prepare you for challenges and makes any of the options okay. It allows you to realistically navigate lifeβs curve balls while still keeping focus on your goal. All while avoiding a defeated attitude when life just doesnβt play nice. So hang in there! Make a plan, and another, and another. And donβt beat yourself up when plan A and plan B donβt work! It happens to everyone β now you can be prepared.
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