You Already Know to Drink Water, Sleep, and Set Boundaries. So Why Don’t You?
Drink more water.
Eat more protein.
Get enough sleep.
Move your body.
Set better boundaries.
Reduce your stress.
At this point, most women I work with could probably teach the basics themselves.
That is what makes it so frustrating.
Because when you already know what would help, but you are still not consistently doing it, the conversation in your head can get pretty mean.
Why can’t I just do this?
I know better.
I should have this figured out by now.
I need to be more disciplined.
I need to stop making excuses.
But what if the issue is not that you need more information?
What if the interesting part is what keeps getting in the way of using the information you already have?
Knowing is not the same as doing
There is a huge difference between knowing that something would help and being able to consistently do it inside your actual life.
You know sleep matters.
But 10:30 p.m. might be the first time all day nobody needs anything from you.
The house is quiet.
Nobody is asking where their shoes are.
Nobody needs a ride.
Nobody is emailing you.
Nobody is calling your name.
So yes, you know you should go to bed.
But another part of you is thinking:
Finally. This is my time.
That changes the conversation.
Now we are not simply dealing with a woman who “needs better sleep habits.”
We are looking at the fact that staying up late might be the only time she feels like her time belongs to her.
You know you need boundaries
You know you do not have to say yes to everything.
You may even have the sentence ready.
“No, I can’t take that on right now.”
Simple enough.
Except saying it brings up something else.
What if they are disappointed?
What if they think I am selfish?
What if nobody else does it?
What if I look difficult?
What if I could technically squeeze it in?
So yes comes out.
Again.
And three hours later you are looking at your calendar wondering why you agreed to one more thing.
That is not a lack of knowledge.
You already know what a boundary is.
The more useful question may be why disappointing someone feels harder than exhausting yourself.
I wrote more about that pattern here:
https://go.wellnesswithwisdom.com/post/say-yes
You know you should eat before you are starving
You know what happens when you wait too long to eat.
You get ravenous.
Your patience disappears.
You eat whatever is easiest.
You are far less interested in making a balanced meal than you were five hours earlier.
You know this.
And yet work gets busy.
One meeting becomes another.
You tell yourself you will eat after you finish this one thing.
Then suddenly it is 3:30.
Again, the problem is not necessarily that you need another nutrition plan.
Maybe the pattern is that everything else gets priority before you do.
That is worth looking at.
You know movement helps
Maybe you actually like going for a walk.
Maybe you feel better every single time you move your body.
But somewhere along the way you picked up a rule that says:
If I cannot do a real workout, it does not count.
Twenty minutes is not enough.
Walking is not enough.
I need to sweat.
I need to do the full program.
So instead of doing something, you do nothing.
Not because you are lazy.
Because perfectionism quietly turned movement into something that only “counts” if it meets a certain standard.
You know you need rest
This one comes up constantly.
Women will tell me they are exhausted and then, in almost the same breath, explain why they cannot sit down.
There is too much to do.
The laundry is not finished.
The kitchen needs cleaning.
There are emails to answer.
The kids need something.
Someone has to organize tomorrow.
Rest gets moved to the bottom of the list.
And the list never ends.
So rest never comes.
Sometimes that is not really a time-management issue.
Sometimes the deeper rule is:
I am allowed to rest when everything is done.
Except everything is never done.
That rule guarantees you never actually earn the thing you desperately need.
This is why more advice can feel so frustrating
If someone tells you:
“Drink more water.”
“Go to bed earlier.”
“Just say no.”
“Meal prep on Sundays.”
“Make time for yourself.”
You may want to scream:
I KNOW.
And you probably do.
That is why I have become much more interested in the question underneath the advice.
What happens right before you do the thing you wish you would stop doing?
What do you believe would happen if you did something differently?
What rule are you following without realizing it?
What does the behaviour give you in that moment?
Relief?
Comfort?
Approval?
Control?
Quiet?
A break?
Avoidance?
Those questions tell us much more than another list of things you should be doing.
Sometimes the behaviour actually makes sense
This is one of the biggest things I want women to understand about the work I do.
The behaviour that frustrates you often makes sense when we understand the pattern underneath it.
Nighttime snacking may be the first comfort you have allowed yourself all day.
Procrastination may protect you from the possibility of getting something wrong.
Saying yes may protect you from guilt.
Overfunctioning may be connected to feeling useful or needed.
Staying up too late may be your only quiet time.
That does not mean the behaviour is helping you now.
It means there may be a reason it keeps happening.
And if there is a reason, then telling yourself to “try harder” probably is not going to be the thing that changes it.
This is the work
This is also why I use NLP in my coaching.
Not because I want to give you another complicated thing to learn.
I use it because I am interested in the patterns running underneath the behaviour.
The language you use.
The rules you have created.
The meaning you have attached to things.
The automatic responses that happen before you have consciously decided anything.
If you want a plain-English example of what that can actually look like in a session, I wrote about it here:
https://go.wellnesswithwisdom.com/post/nlp
The goal is not to give you more information.
You already have plenty.
The goal is to understand what keeps getting in the way of doing what you already know would help.
Because once we can see the pattern, we finally have something different to work with.
It is not always a willpower problem.
Sometimes it is a pattern problem.
If this sounds familiar
Thursday, October 22 at 7:00 p.m., I’m teaching a free live session called:
The Road Back to You: You Already Know What to Do. Here’s Why You Can’t Make Yourself Do It.
We’re going to look at why knowing what to do often is not enough, what may be happening underneath the behaviours you keep trying to change, and what it can look like to work with the pattern instead of constantly fighting yourself.
In the meantime, if you would rather talk through what is going on for you one-on-one, you can book a conversation with me here:
https://wellnesswithwisdom.com/discovery-call
That call is relaxed, about 45 to 60 minutes, and meant to help you get clarity on what may actually be getting in the way.
