How to Make Healthy Choices for Life

We've all been there: You set out to make healthier choices—eating better, exercising more, reducing stress—but somehow, no matter how hard you try, it just doesn't stick. You start strong, full of motivation and commitment, but before long, life gets in the way, old habits sneak back in, and you’re left feeling frustrated and defeated.

Changing habits can be challenging, especially when it comes to health-related behaviours like eating better, exercising, or reducing stress. The process is often accompanied by setbacks and failure which can make you feel defeated and frustrated. However, just because this is common for most people —it doesn’t mean that it’s not possible. It just means it takes time and some trial and error to find what works best for you.

Sometimes it helps to stop striving for perfection, a better approach would be to shift the focus on the process and reframe failures as learning opportunities. Change is about taking small steps and finding balance rather than doing everything perfectly. Every small step adds up, and often progress happens in ways that aren’t immediately obvious.

If you are feeling defeated and frustrated, it can be helpful talking to someone about what’s been challenging for you and figuring out together what feels more realistic and doable. The automatic nature of habits, fluctuating motivation, lack of accountability, and cognitive biases are all challenges that can be difficult to tackle on your own. Support from a health coach, friends, or accountability partners can provide the structure, feedback, and encouragement needed to break through these barriers and create lasting change.

In my practice, I often see people who have become very discouraged after failing to stick to restrictive diets, intense exercise routines, or rigid plans that are hard to maintain. They often blame themselves and their lack of willpower, however the real reason they fail is because what they were trying was overly complicated, overwhelming and not sustainable in the long term. As a Nutrition & Health Coach and Cognitive Behavioural Coach my approach is very different. I never recommend fad diets or quick fixes which don't last, instead my work involves giving clients the tools, confidence, and mindset to believe they can influence their actions—not by relying on others to tell them what to do, but by discovering their own path so they can establish healthy behaviours for life.

Health coaching has been shown to be one of the most powerful tools for achieving sustainable change. The reason being that it allows individuals to take charge of their own health by building confidence, self-awareness, and healthy habits that are deeply rooted in their values. This approach makes it one of the most effective tools for creating lasting behaviour change in health and well-being and this is why:

1. Understanding Struggles and Motivations

Striving to understand why you’ve struggled to stick to healthy habits in the past is crucial for developing an approach that works for you. This involves having an open and non-judgmental conversation about your motivations, as well as the barriers you are facing.

Below is an example of the kind of questions a health coach would ask you in an open non-judgemental conversation:

• What are the main reasons you want to make these healthy choices?

• What challenges or obstacles have you faced before?

• How did you feel when you were succeeding? What triggered your setbacks?

Alongside with validating your experiences and struggles they would help you clarify your “why”—the deeper reason behind your desire for change. This can be helpful in keeping your motivation strong when the going gets tough.

2. Encouraging Small, Sustainable Changes

One of the most common reasons people give up on healthy habits is because they try to do too much, too quickly. They may go all-in with restrictive diets, intense exercise routines, or rigid plans that are hard to maintain. Encouraging you to start small and focus on sustainable, gradual changes will make it easier to stick with your new habits over time.

Below are a few examples:

• Suggesting you start with one change at a time, rather than overhauling your entire lifestyle. For example, instead of committing to a 5-day-a-week gym schedule, a health coach would suggest you start with walking 10 minutes a day.

• Helping you set realistic, achievable goals that align with your lifestyle. Small wins help build momentum.

• Reinforcing the idea that small changes can lead to big results over time. You don’t need to be perfect, just consistent.

3. Focussing on Process, Not Perfection

Often, people give up on healthy habits because they feel like they’ve failed if they slip up or can’t stick to a routine perfectly. The role of a health coach is to help you shift your mindset from perfectionism to progress and consistency by:

• Encouraging you to focus on the process rather than the outcome. For instance, instead of aiming to lose 10 pounds in a month, the goal could be to reduce sugar, eat more vegetables or exercise for 10 minutes each day.

• Normalising setbacks as part of the journey. If you slip up, reminding you that it’s not the end—just a momentary blip.

• Reframing failures as learning opportunities: What caused the slip-up, and how can you approach things differently next time?

4. Using Positive Reinforcement and Celebrating Progress

Positive reinforcement helps maintain motivation over time. Recognizing and celebrating even small successes can make a big difference in building confidence and reinforcing the behaviour you want to maintain. This can be achieved by:

• Acknowledging your efforts, even for small wins, helping you feel supported.

• Helping you celebrate milestones. Whether it’s treating yourself to something you enjoy or taking time to reflect on your progress. Celebrating helps reinforce your hard work.

• Helping you focus on non-scale victories, like improved energy levels, better sleep, or mental clarity, rather than just outcomes like weight loss.

5. Creating Accountability Without Pressure

Accountability can be a powerful motivator, but it’s important that it doesn’t feel like judgment or criticism. A health coach would help you create a system where you feel supported and encouraged, rather than pressured by:

• Being your accountability partner. This could mean checking in regularly on your progress and encouraging you in every possible way.

• Suggesting you keep a habit tracker or journal to log your progress. This can be motivating and help you see how far you’ve come.

• If you feel overwhelmed by accountability, helping you start small. A simple “How’s it going?” text or periodic check-in may be enough.

6. Helping You Identify Your Triggers and Patterns

Healthy choices can be hard to maintain when old habits, emotional triggers, or environmental cues lead to setbacks. Helping you become aware of these triggers can give you the power to create strategies for avoiding or managing them. Here are some examples:

• Encouraging you to keep track of when you feel most tempted to revert to old habits. Are there certain situations, emotions, or times of day that make it hard to stick to healthy choices?

• Once you identify your triggers, helping you brainstorm coping strategies. For example, if you tend to snack on unhealthy food when stressed, helping you find healthier ways to cope, like taking a break for deep breathing or a quick walk.

• Helping you adjust your environment to remove triggers. This could mean getting rid of unhealthy snacks from your home or setting up a workout area in your living space that reminds you to exercise.

7. Encouraging Habit Stacking

Habit stacking is a technique where you "stack" a new habit onto an already established habit. This helps integrate healthy behaviours into your daily routine, making it more likely to stick long-term. Here are some examples:

• Asking you to identify habits you already do regularly, such as brushing your teeth or making coffee.

• Encouraging you to add a small, healthy habit onto that routine. For example, after making coffee in the morning, you could stretch for five minutes or drink a glass of water.

This technique helps the new habit become part of an existing pattern, which reduces the cognitive effort needed to establish it.

8. Supporting You in Creating a Balanced Plan

When people make health-related changes, they often focus on restrictive diets or extreme exercise plans, which often are unsustainable. A health coach would help you focus on balance, enjoyment, and flexibility in your approach to health by:

• Encouraging you to find activities you enjoy, rather than forcing yourself to do something you dislike. If you hate running, maybe you’ll enjoy dancing, yoga, or cycling?

• Helping you create a flexible eating plan rather than a strict diet. Encouraging mindful eating and balance (80/20 rule: 80% healthy, 20% indulgent) helps avoid the pitfalls of deprivation.

• Promoting a holistic approach to health, where mental well-being, sleep, and stress management are just as important as diet and exercise.

9. Encouraging Mindfulness and Self-Compassion

Many people give up on making healthy choices because they are too hard on themselves when they slip up. By promoting mindfulness and self-compassion, a health coach can help you build resilience and stay motivated over the long term. Here are a few examples:

• Encouraging you to practice mindfulness, paying attention to how your body feels when you make healthy choices (e.g., “How does your body feel after a nourishing meal?” or “How did you feel after that yoga session?”). This positive reinforcement strengthens the desire to keep going.

• Helping you develop self-compassion by reminding you that change is hard and that it’s okay to not be perfect. Encouraging positive self-talk like, “It’s okay that I missed a workout today—I’ll try again tomorrow.”

10. Helping You Plan for Long-Term Success

Sustainability is key. It’s not about quick fixes or temporary diets but creating lasting change. A health coach would help you view your healthy choices as part of a long-term lifestyle shift by:

• Encouraging you to focus on progress over time, not immediate results. Helping you see that small steps add up to big changes in the long run.

• Working with you to develop healthy routines that fit into your life. This means adapting healthy choices to your personal schedule, preferences, and constraints so they don’t feel like a chore.

• Helping you prepare for difficult periods (e.g., busy workweeks, holidays) by discussing strategies in advance for staying on track with your health goals without feeling overly restricted.

The purpose of health coaching is to help individuals grow in confidence and self-awareness, so they can take charge of their health and wellbeing. This kind of empowerment makes them more motivated, self-sufficient, and confident in their ability to navigate challenges, overcome setbacks, and achieve more meaningful and sustainable change over time.

If you are ready to change behaviour and make healthy choices for life, book a free chat to discuss how I can help you achieve more meaningful, and sustainable change.

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