SPRING IS AN IMPORTANT SEASON

As Spring approaches once more, seemingly 5 minutes after the last one, and only about 10 minutes after Boris first said “hands, face space” a couple before that, we could be forgiven for thinking time is accelerating right now. Well, it isn’t. And we’re not here for small talk anyway so let’s move on. You can save discussing the rapid passage of time for people who you meet and don’t have much to say to, it’s a sure winner. So, back to business, I have an important message regarding Spring: It is a golden opportunity for change.

We cannot underestimate the importance of Spring (along with the other three seasons) in making life changing decisions and transforming our physical and mental health.

In fact, some recent fictitious research found that Spring emerged as a CLEAR joint winner as the best time of year to change your life, tied only with Summer, Autumn and Winter. So there can be no doubt that now is a possible time for change.

In other entirely made up research, Spring emerged as the winner of the longest perceived season category, meaning that whilst it is technically the same length as the others, a few people felt it seemed longer. Based on these findings, it cannot now be clearer that Spring is the season to take action!

Joking aside, I find we can unhealthily fixate on what is the ‘right time’ or the ‘best time’ to make changes to our lives. It’s not helped by the amount of ‘special months’ we have… If we’re not doing a Dry January, we’re having a Stoptober, failing that there’s always someone growing a moustache for some reason, it’s really quite confusing.

The problem with trying to find the ‘best time’ to start improving our health is that these beliefs about when that is stop us far more than they start us off!

For example, when Spring comes, the time we’ve been waiting for… and we sprain our ankle on the first day or get the flu, we’ve missed our chance.

We could then start in summer, but NO! Summer is too hot, Spring is the time to change, so we wait another year… and so on.

We can rinse and repeat this cycle for any season or month chosen as the imaginary best time to make changes, and soon we find that years or even decades have flown by.

The Solution

The solution in my eyes is that we need to stop kidding ourselves. Stop playing the “when then” game and start the “right now” game.

Instead of saying “I’ll start running once the nights are lighter and the weather is warmer”… just get some layers on and run at lunch time. Instead of saying “it’s too hard to eat salads when it’s cold, I’ll eat them in summer”, simply eat what is required for your desired goal whatever the weather.

Humans are sophisticated animals and we are quite capable of conquering our impulses to make rational decisions for the betterment of our health, longevity and happiness. We don’t have to let arbitrary rules govern our eating and exercise patterns, such as saying it’s too cold to eat a salad, or too dark to run. It really is just nonsense.

So today your homework is to have a think about how you’d like to improve health and fitness. How long you’d like to live, how you’d like to look and feel. Then, start acting to achieve those goals.

There really is absolutely no better time than RIGHT NOW to start a new life, and that statement is true 365 days a year.

Do the research, read the books, get a coach, get a gym buddy, get as much help as you need but for goodness sake decide what you want and then go and get it.

By the time you are reading my next article, you can have a different life, or be well on the way to one, there is no time to waste!