In this episode, I share the top 10 reasons why a personal growth journey will improve your life. It doesn’t really matter what area you decide to focus on, it’s just a matter of choosing to improve yourself in any area of your life! If you aren’t sure what area to focus on, go back and listen to the last 2 episodes! In episode 82 I talk about why learning about your health is a great place to start, and in episode 83, Jason Cronan and I discuss the 8 dimensions of wellness. You can just pick 1 to get started, and then start reaping the benefits outlined in this episode!!! This journey is all about you, make it yours, just get started! I’m always here to help if you would like to learn more about my journey and the courses I’ve taken if learning more about your health is of interest to you! I’ve LOVED every step of my journey and I wish the same for you!
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Imagine getting up every day full of energy is if you were in your 20s. Again, what would that be like?
Melissa Deally:What would that be worth to you?
Melissa Deally:What is your health worth to you? Think about it. Your health isn't everything. But without it, everything else is nothing. And yet too many of us are taking it for granted until something goes wrong. No one wakes up hoping to be diagnosed with the disease or chronic illness. And yet we've never been taught how to be proactive in our health through our school system, or public health. As a registered health coach and integrative health practitioner, I believe it is time this information is made available to everyone. Combining new knowledge around your health and the ability to do my functional medicine lab tests in the comfort of your own home will allow you to optimize your health for today in all your tomorrow's don't wait for your wake up call
Melissa Deally:welcome back to another episode of The don't wait for your wake up call podcast. I am Melissa Delia, your host. And we are in the month of talking about personal growth. And so today's episode 10 reasons personal growth is important no matter what your age is, is gonna be a fun episode going through those 10 reasons I'm excited to share this with you. But first I want to share with you a testimonial that I received from Larissa Russell in Edmonton, Alberta. She said, I have to say that from my first conversation with Melissa I knew I had to do something to combat my health. I was fatigued all the time bloated. My pain levels were at about a 12 on a scale of one to 10. And I just knew I had to do something. I took her 21 day detox program and it changed my life in 21 days, my pain level was down to about it to my cravings were gone. I am no longer bloated and miserable and my energy levels are amazing. Plus, I am sleeping so much better. And I didn't even know that was an issue. I would highly recommend working with Melissa She guides you through step by step to make it as easy as possible. My life has changed. You want her guidance. Thank you. Thank you, Larissa. I really enjoyed guiding you through that program. And I'm so happy for the results that you received. So diving into the episode and continuing the theme of personal growth. I'm sure you are aware that the personal growth industry is a huge industry. And as a health coach and integrative health practitioner, I'm absolutely part of that industry. I also read personal growth books, I see all the books in the bookstores and online, I get emails inviting me to a myriad of webinars and courses. But after doing some research, I realized that at 9.9 billion US dollars, it is still a small industry relative to the entertainment industry, including movies and music that comes in at $61 billion a year and an even smaller drop in the bucket compared to the beauty industry which comes in at $265 billion. So there is definitely room to grow the personal growth industry. And it turns out that me talking about this topic might be more important than I first thought when I planned out my monthly themes back in January 2022. So let's dive in and talk about the 10 top 10 reasons personal growth is important, no matter your age. First of all, personal growth will lead to healthier relationships. And with healthier relationships, we are happier, we have a better quality of life. We all know that relationships take work. There are miscommunications, disagreements, misunderstandings that can cause hurt and pain, which we need to work through and resolve. And the stronger our communication and relationship skills, the greater our ability to encounter these pitfalls less often and recover more quickly, feeling stronger than ever in the relationship from having gone through that hiccup. relationship skills are not actively taught in school, I kind of joke I remember being in a networking room once in zoom. And I met up with a lady who was a love coach, a lady who was a money coach, and then I was there as a health coach. And we all said that the work that we do today and the area that we focus on educating people about are not taught in school, right? Societal relationship skills might be learned on the playground. But there are as I said, Love coaches such as Whitney Chromebit Kobrin, who I met in that Zoom Room, and who has been a guest on my podcast if you go back to Episode 53 And so she teaches, you know, you know the importance of relationships, relationship skills from the perspective of a love coach. There's great books out there on the same topic books like men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, you know, came out in late 80s 90s, I think, as well as the five love languages. And when the Five Love Languages came out initially that was just about romantic relationships. But it's developed into more than that. And you can do the five love languages in order to understand how your children like to receive and give love and how friends like to receive and give love and use that in any relationship. So number one is healthier personal growth. As you step into learning all of this leads to healthier relationships, and who doesn't want that life is less stressful and much happier with healthier relationships. That leads me into number two, less stress. When we prioritize learning mindfulness practices as part of our personal growth journey, we can learn how to reduce the stress in our life and the impact of that stress on our life. Stress is the reason for over 90% of doctor's visits, it is negatively impacting your health in so many ways, it kills off the good bacteria in your gut causing an imbalance which weakens your immune system because 70% of your immune system is housed in your gut, it also negatively impacts your sleep, not getting enough sleep also then kills off more good bacteria in your gut and leaves you less resilient to the stresses in your daily life. And then you end up in this negative vicious cycle. For sleep, you're less stress resilience, or your stress goes up which negatively impacts your sleep. And all of that is negatively impacting the health of your gut, which we know is the epicenter of good health. So we need that gut to be healthy. Stress can also cause hormonal imbalances in both men and women, which can then lead to a myriad of symptoms and health issues often hard to diagnose with medical lab tests. But I see them all the time with the functional medicine at home lab tests that I work with. And I see high stress can drive an estrogen progesterone imbalance in women and estrogen testosterone imbalance in men, these imbalances can lead to thyroid problems can lead to insulin problems, etc. And we just don't need to have that cascading effect of negative health issues. All triggered by stress. Stress also disrupts your digestion which results in you not getting the nutrients from the food that you eat, because the food's not being broken down properly. And we eat food for energy. But if the food isn't being broken down, and you're not getting the nutrients from that food into your cells, it's leaving you depleted and lacking in energy. So a mindfulness practice is important. And something I knew nothing of back when I was in the corporate world. But soon after leaving that, I started learning about the importance of self care, and implementing a practice of mindfulness. And now I regularly enjoy my yoga, tai chi, meditation paddleboarding. That's what I chose this morning, the lake was like last, glorious, sunshiny day, just being on the lake. I think I saw five other people in the hour that I was out there. It was absolute bliss, and just a time for me to allow my body and my mind to calm. Now, it doesn't mean that I stopped my thoughts altogether. The thoughts are still there. But it's not as much of a flurry of ping, ping, ping, ping, ping. And it's not as much feeling like I have to act on every thought that's coming into my mind as I'm rushing to try and get it all done. Instead, the thoughts are coming and going. And it's often when I receive great inspiration and you know, creative ideas and answers to problems in those times when I can just let the thoughts come and go without judging without questioning and without having to act on every single thought. So stepping into a personal growth journey of learning about mindfulness is so so important for your health, which leads me into the third benefit of a personal growth journey, and that is your health. Because with lower stress, we get improved health with happier, healthier, happier relationships. We're also getting better health as our emotions impact our health as well. In fact, all those negative emotions that we don't want to feel and we stuffed down, they can cause disease over time. When I take my clients through detox programs, to Turning on the client, some of them will be crying and they don't know why they're crying. And it's because the detox program is actually helping them to detox some of those negative emotions and release that. Some people have stuffed them down so far that they can't be accessed with a simple physical detox program. And instead, we have to dive deeper and work with the unconscious mind in order to allow those negative emotions to be released. So learning how to manage our emotions is absolutely instrumental to improving our health, and actively choosing to learn how your body functions, how nutrition, sleep, stress, exercise toxins, impact your health will obviously result in better health. One of the goals of the integrative health practitioner organization through which I did some of my training is a health coach in every home, you don't have to build a business, but you can teach your family how to choose a healthier lifestyle. I honestly didn't know anything about health when I was back in the corporate world. And when I started my first health coaching course, I was shocked at how little I knew about my own body, and the impact of stress, sleep and nutrition. I knew exercise was good, I tried to eat healthy, but I really didn't know how to do that, as I'd never been taught any of this at school or through public health. So I just did what I thought was right, which was very often impacted by marketers wanting to sell their products, but didn't really care about my health. And back then I truly thought that choosing low fat, no fat was a healthy option, because that is what the ads told me. I didn't know processed foods were less healthy than eating whole foods. I knew eating too much sugar wasn't good for me. So I avoided candy. I had no idea about the chemicals used in processed foods, cheap GMO oils, and sugars. I had no idea about the level of toxicity in our world today. And what that was doing to my health because I couldn't see or feel the toxins. But once I started learning all of this, it made total sense. And it allowed me to make some significant changes in my life that really weren't hard to implement, all because I was on a journey to learn more about my health. And the more I learned, the more I wanted to know, the more I changed, the more my body liked it. And the more I continued to change as I learned to listen to the signals of my body. And I truly believe that if every person on the planet just did the very first health coaching course that I did, even if you don't want to become a health coach, but just to learn that foundational information about how our body works, about nutrition, stress, et cetera, et cetera, we just wouldn't have all the chronic illness that we have in the world today.
Melissa Deally:Listeners, I just want to interrupt this podcast for a second to say thank you for listening, and let you know that I am very honored to have been nominated again for the quality care Award, as well as the Entrepreneur of the Year Award for 2022. From the business from the heart awards. And if you like this podcast, if you like my content, if it aligns, I would love to invite you to vote for me, you simply go to business from the heart awards.ca. And you can vote up to daily. And the voting goes from September 5 to September 30. And once all the votes are in the three people with the most number of votes, then go before the judges to decide the winner. So if you can help me get before the judges, I would very much appreciate it. And I also want to let you know that on September 29, at 3:30pm Pacific 6:30pm. Eastern, I'm running a free workshop called five habits that are negatively impacting your sleep. So if you struggle with sleep, getting to sleep, staying asleep, waking up feeling tired, or know somebody who does, please share this with them, you can register for free. at my website, simply go to your guided health journey.com Click on programs, click on workshops, you'll find it there, register, and I'd love to see you there. It's a one hour workshop designed to help you sleep better and wake up feeling energized.
Melissa Deally:So what else does a personal growth journey? How else does it benefit you? Well, it can result in increased productivity. Now when that'd be amazing because one problem we all face or many of us face is lack of time. We all have only 24 hours in a day. And most people wish they had more hours. How many times have you said that? I wish there was more hours in the day. So if we could instead increase our productivity, wouldn't that help we could do more in less time. Here's the thing. When we lower our stress, we can increase our productivity as higher levels of stress shut down our frontal cortex resulting in a poor attention span, poor focus. And as well as poor decision making, when we can't focus, we take significantly longer to accomplish anything because one thought pulls us here, we start working on that and other thought pulls us over to this side, we start working on that. And we're all over the place, and we're not really getting anything done. But when we can focus on getting one task done at a time, that's when we are at our best and when our productivity is at our highest. So multitasking, I know it's been sold as being something that you know, the best employees can do it all. It's not true, we need to focus on one thing at a time, and we get it done a whole lot more effectively, more productively. And then we can move on to the next task. And I did episodes on this in this podcast that came out in January of 2022. One of them was with Julie Jones, you can check out that podcast if you want to learn more about product improving productivity, and the reasons why multitasking isn't actually something that you want to be striving for. So when we embark on a personal growth journey of mindfulness, we're not only improving our health, but also our productivity. And that in turn further reduces our stress. As we aren't worried about all the things that we aren't getting done. We're getting them done, whoo hoo. improve productivity also gives us more time in our day to enjoy the things that bring us joy, leading to improved happiness and quality of life, we get more things done, we can have more time with our kids or our loved ones, you know, getting out and doing activities that we want to be doing. Procrastination is also something that can hinder productivity, and is often caused by deeper emotions. So when we are on a personal growth journey, and you are more aware of your emotions, you're releasing the negative ones, you're better able to release them, and or allow them to process through your body and move forward. That then reduces your chances of procrastination, and makes you more productive. So number five, with a journey of personal growth, we are enhancing our self control, because self control is the ability to regulate your thoughts, emotions and behaviors. And our thoughts are very often driven by our beliefs from which which come from deep within our unconscious minds. And when we embark on a personal growth journey, this connection between beliefs leading to thoughts which lead to actions comes to light, allowing you to again have more control is when you understand this path, you can start to create change, you can release the beliefs that no longer serve, you can release the emotions that no longer serve you, allowing you to move forward and create new beliefs that lead to new actions that align with who you are becoming, I can help you shift your beliefs and your emotions through my NLP and timeline therapy work using the power of our unconscious mind to create lasting change in a very short amount of time. If you want to learn more about this work, please email me at Melissa, you're guided health journey.com It's powerful work that will set you free of the baggage that's been holding you back and allow you to leap forward. And this is a huge aspect of any personal growth journey. With personal growth, it leads to greater success. One of the best things I've learned on my personal growth path is to celebrate the baby steps. Don't just look at the end goal. And only celebrate when you get there. As you may never actually get there, your path might shift somewhere along the way before you get to that end goal. And then you create a new end goal. And there's no celebrating or feeling of success. Success is motivating. It keeps you going on your path even when things feel hard. So why not celebrate the baby steps the more you celebrate the more success you feel. And then you feel more motivation. So you keep going while also bringing more joy in your into your life is Who doesn't love a celebration. The next one. Number seven is improved peace of mind. Everything I've discussed so far leads to a greater peace of mind. But even more than that, when you embark on a personal growth journey, you are generally not alone in it. You have support around you and that brings you peace. You may also learn that everything happens for a reason as I have and when you believe in that you look for what you need to learn as a result of whatever happened. You're more accepting of what has happened rather than being angry and frustrated and with the world and you know, bitter and caught up in this negative mindset of you know, why did this happen to me, Woe is me. I am the victim. When we look at things from the perspective Fear of, okay, this wasn't the way I wanted things to happen, but they have, what can I learn from this? And how do I move forward, we can be in a much more positive mindset as a result. And that's just a more peaceful place to be, then we're more all, you know curled up with anger and bitterness and frustration inside. So you may also embark on a spiritual growth journey and in doing so have greater peace of mind as you trust in God or know that the universe has your back, ultimately, knowing that you're supported in your purpose in life, and that the tough lessons are what propel you forward at a faster rate. Number eight, better parenting, lower stress, more peace, improved productivity, and better health will result in you being a better parent, I guarantee it, you're better able to be patient with your kids to take the time to teach them not just yell commands as you rush around trying to get it all done. I know when I first learned the importance of self care and made my mantra, self care is the most selfless act as it allows me to show up and give the world the best of me instead of what's left of me. And I implemented that into my life. I noticed that I wasn't reacting when my kids were pushing my buttons. And instead, I could engage calmly ask questions, enjoy teaching moments where before, I might have just yelled a command. As a parent, we are also role models and kids learn from watching your behaviors. In fact, they learn more from watching your behaviors than they do from you telling them what to do. So as my kids see me continuing to learn and implement my learning, they are benefiting from it. Even when they may also poopoo the idea of doing detoxes, they still know I do that. Maybe at some point in their life, they're going to decide that they want to clean up their health, and maybe they'd like to do that too. They know where the resources are to support them. They know where to come and get answers about their health issues when they need to. Number nine, a personal growth journey leads to greater resilience. I've already said that getting good sleep improves our resilience to stress, but so does having a healthy mindset, lowering our stress and trusting in a higher power. Those who choose to embark on a personal growth journey will build resilience through that journey. And developing greater resilience may well be the most important thing with anyone don't wait to your week of our luggage.
Melissa Deally:All right, so glad you joined in. And number 10 to share
Melissa Deally:your happiness on your life than being able to bring it about yourself through your labor reviews by going to your favorite podcast listening app changes you implement or you step away celebrations. The likes minded me that you surround yourself with hustle, match joy into a why no action for me I enjoyed myself in the care system we