Elizabeth Saigal

What is the distinction between ‘Doing your best’ and ‘Being your best’? The ‘Doing your best’ perspective suggests that we should go all out to squeeze more out of ourselves. This means continually attempting to give 100% in everything we do. But, there is a high risk of burn out if we do not equally give 100% to recharging our energy!

Is it really practical to ‘Do our best’ at everything, or even necessary? If we try to ‘do our best’ in every detail of what we do, we fall prey to perfectionism, which makes it really hard to bring something to completion. For example, when chopping vegetables to cook, some unevenness will not affect the flavor. In many cases, more is lost by going for perfection than settling for good enough.

Striving to ‘do your best’ also increases comparison with others and brings greater judgment of our own presentation.

What happens though, if ‘Doing your best’ is rephrased to ‘Being your best’? This shifts our perspective from the outcome to the level of engagement and good enough becomes perfect. Check out these three ways to shift from ‘doing your best’ to ‘being your best’.

Read More »Three Practices for switching ‘Doing Your Best’ to ‘Being Your Best’

In Part 1, I provided some possibilities for smartphone apps that you can carry with you providing constant backup on your missions! In this entry, I continue with website based applications:

9) Irunurun:

This supports new habit formation. You begin with zero points. To earn points you enter the action or habit you want to track and weight it with a point value. As you complete the actions you want to be held accountable for, you add points. You can also build an accountability team of friends and family and selectively share your progress with them.

Read More »Top Twenty Habit and Goal Apps to Support Getting It Done: Part 2 online options

Give yourself a reason to celebrate by repeatedly meeting your goals and getting it done.

Staying on course with your goal commitments is not just about taking the individual steps themselves, but also about providing the most supportive environment possible for success.

As you know, any goal takes work. When you commit to changing a habit, it takes time to establish and really pay off. You literally have to learn it until it becomes natural.

Something that appears to be a small change, like eating more fruit and vegetables, requires changes to many different supporting behaviors. You may have to shift your shopping routines so that you have fresh fruit and vegetables on hand. Perhaps you have to learn new ways of preparing dishes. You might even need some new kitchen equipment. In addition to this, you need to adapt to how your body adjusts to a new diet – maybe you will get hungry more quickly. Break down at any one of these points may lead to not meeting your goal that day.

Read More »Top Twenty Habit and Goal Apps to Support Getting It Done: Part 1 apps for smart devices

How are you doing on those New Year resolutions?

Perhaps you wanted to shed holiday pounds through diet and exercise and have a healthier lifestyle?

If your motivation has taken a hit, these apps for self-coaching provide options for measuring your health-related activities. This type of self-observation provides invaluable feedback and has been labeled the “quantified self” movement.

While I have not had personal experience with all of these, I have seen firsthand how much impact logging your behavior can have. You can no longer hide behind approximations, but find out the truth behind your perceptions of your behavior. By getting data feedback you gain support and accountability. This increases your chances of success in much the same way as life coaching. Any new objective now has additional knowledge behind it that will allow you to make more realistic commitments.

Below, I describe the main features of ten health apps for self-coaching that will support you in establishing new habits.

1. Runkeeper:

This free app for iPhone or Android enables you to map your fitness activities by time, distance, speed, pace, calories, and route. Engagement is also increased through planning, music, progress feedback, and run history.

2. MyFitnessPal:

This free web app uses databases of foods and exercises to track calorie intake and output.

3. 80 Bites:

Read More »Top Ten Health Apps That Allow You to Coach Yourself