Episode 062 – My five tips for planning a healthy week

Hello! I’m your host, Lorraine Stone, and on today’s episode I’m talking about my five tips for planning a healthy week to help you take back your life from chronic illness.

Many of us with chronic illnesses are overwhelmed and feel out of control, with too much to do, too much in our heads, too many people telling us we can no longer do the things we want to still try and do, and with past experiences leaving us feeling judged and shamed for our lives being different now.

But, it doesn’t have to be that way.

Each and every week I start with a plan. Maybe an occupational hazard of being an executive assistant for my day-job and always having been a lover of creating lists, but it has been an absolute game-changer in my success at taking back my life from my chronic illness.

Most of us know how to make a plan. We started using them when we were given class timetables in school or college, the who, what, where and when of our lessons.

The thing is, do you have the right mindset going into it? The WHY of having a plan?

So, the first tip is make the WHY of the plan.

I’m back to my full-time hours of 9-6 in my day-job, following my operation earlier this year, but still on a phased return in respect of commuting to the office in London vs WFH. When I am commuting I lose four hours a day to walking to and from stations, waiting for trains, and sitting on my bum as the train pootles along. I often feel because I have 13hrs a day out of the house that I have no time for myself, and no control over how any of it is spent.

Therefore, my why is to ensure that I have some sense of control and choice in my days, to get to the end of the week having had time to do things for myself, and still have some level of energy, which along with my illness now also varies depending on where I am in my menstrual cycle. Even though I very recently had a hysterectomy and no longer bleed or can get pregnant, those hormones of mine are still doing their job as if I could and for the first time in nearly 30 years I’m no longer on the pill and able to control them.

The second tip is pop in the big things first, then the little things.

We all have 7 days a week, and 24hrs a day and we do NOT have the same 24hrs as Beyoncé! So in your plan, first put in the big things. The things you can’t miss. If you have set eating times, bath times, if you need to commute, take kids to school. And block out sleep. I know that I tend to be asleep by 10pm, and up again by 6am, because I’m a morning person, so I block out those 8 hours, even though I might not always get them. All of these things need to be managed.

And be careful on that multi-tasking. I block out my commute time, and I used to put in there things I could do for Life in Align, but oftentimes, especially on the way home, I’d be standing on the train as there were no seats left, or there’d be no signal, and then things wouldn’t get done. Now, if I choose to multi-task, it’s to listen to a podcast, read a book, or have a nap. My favourite. But I don’t write it down because then I have the freedom to go with where the mood takes me. I get to choose!

I have a big to-do list, but I’ll review it once a week, and add the things that need to get done into each day on the day they need doing. It’s a lot less overwhelming than looking at the big list that has things for three months from now several times a day.

Thirdly, be realistic. 

So many women start with “I’m going to cut out all the sugar, get up at 5am every day and workout, stop drinking, prepare 3 healthy meals a day” and many of us start planning from a lack mindset, a fear mindset, a fear of what we don’t want. Not what we do, which is to have better control over our illness and not the illness controlling us.

Also, thinking that being healthy means things such as I can’t have any foods I really enjoy. I have to work out an hour a day. I can’t go out to eat with my family, it’s all punishing thinking and it’s dangerous and sets us up to feel worse than we do. You end up struggling, and using much more energy than necessary, energy that we don’t have to spare!

It’s disempowering when a plan is built on I can’t or I shouldn’t. I hate to tell you this, but it doesn’t work… do you really want to spend your life avoiding all the stuff society has said you can’t and shouldn’t do? I have to be honest, it sounds exhausting, and terrifying!

We must make plans that are realistic when it comes to making changes towards living with our chronic illness instead of surviving with it. Pick just one thing for this week that takes you one step closer. Once it starts to become easier, then add a second thing in and see how you go with the two, and so on.

My fourth tip is to agree with yourself. No negotiations. 

Easier to do if your plan is realistic, so it doesn’t have wiggle room for you to back out on yourself, to let yourself down, and to feel like a failure. We only have so much willpower and motivation. If you need to tap into it all day because you are doing stuff you don’t like, don’t understand, or it’s not realistic, then more times than not you will burn out, and FAST.

You’re already burned out, this isn’t about making you worse. Say you decided the one thing to try this week is to get up every morning when the alarm goes off and not press snooze. But you know that on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays you don’t have to because your partner deals with all things kid-related, so instead of feeling like you failed because in the moment you think screw it, I don’t have to get up right now, instead decide in advance that you’ll get up when the alarm goes off on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays.

Then think about what social type events you have this week. I build my week around several hours or a late evening event. I can only do one. If it’s a family dinner on Saturday night, then Sunday is pottering at home. If it’s a Friday evening, then the whole weekend is for pottering. If I want to be ok for next week, I have to plan in advance how to pace this week.

My fifth and final tip is to keep a journal.

Yes, I’ve just added an extra thing into your day, but it doesn’t have to be several pages of downloading your entire brain, unless you want to. Mine is to tick things off the plan as I go through. If there’s something I didn’t do, at the end of the week I’ll work out why and adjust for next week’s plan. And I finish each day with a smiley face, one for how happy I feel and one for my energy level. Because, yes, it is possible to be very happy and have low energy levels.

This is the process I follow to make empowered plans for myself. It works or me, and it can help you make your own.

There’s no silver bullet out there.

The magic is in crafting plans you feel great about doing. I promise, you will always start to feel more in control, more like you have a choice, and more confident if you are consistent. and consistency starts with a well-laid out doable and realistic plan.

I’d love to know your key takeaway from today’s episode, or if you need support with creating your weekly plan because you really have no idea with where you need to start, you can email me on [email protected]. You can also find me on Instagram, at lifeinalign, just DM me the word PLAN and I’ll get back to you. I’ve put a link to my email and my Instagram in the shownotes.

I have also created a quiz for you to answer a few questions to reveal your perfect match power scent, your confidence secret weapon, intrinsically echoed through your many varied choices in life. There’s a link for this in the shownotes too, and you can also find it at lifeinalign.com/link-me. Or, if you go anywhere on my website, you should see a pop-up that will take you there.

Thanks for listening, and remember – you are worth it, and you get to choose.

Have a lovely day.