When I first started Miss Best the focus was mainly on food. This is where I have my roots. I have been interested in nutrition for over 10 years. Sexy healthy food has been in my life for nearly 20 years, but two years ago I started to shift my focus when, as a business owner, I realized I was neglecting my personal well-being by solely focus on food. It’s hugely important of course, but I really did notice a certain lack of balance when I didn’t pay attention to other areas of my life like exercise, healthy relationships and my attitude to money.

This experience prompted me to widen my scope to life coaching as well as health coaching. Everything is connected. We can’t address our eating habits without considering other beliefs that we have. Take overeating, for example; does this habit mean that you ‘only’ have an issue with food, or does it mean you are eating addictive foods because it helps numb the pain you experience from not being fulfilled at work, or because you are lonely? Our physical actions start from the mind, whether we are conscious of it or not!

I was reminded of the power of the mind this week while working out. I usually really love exercising. Even if it can feel challenging at times, both finding the inclination to get into those running shoes, and sometimes during a run when reaching that 5 km target seems to take years rather than minutes; but I know that by doing my exercise not only will I feel great afterwards, but I will also avoid being disappointed with myself for not ’showing up’. To me the ‘pain’ of ‘forcing’ myself to run on an ‘I am really not in the mood’ day is less than the ‘pain’ I will feel for not sticking to my health goals.

So, the other day I was at the gym. I had been eating well. Had slept well. Physically I was on form for a good work out. But my mind didn’t want to play and it was letting me know by making it really, really hard work! ’I know you are physically able to do this …but you know what? I haven’t had enough fun with friends this week, so I am going to make as much noise as possible so that it’s really hard for you to reach your exercise goal today,’ That’s exactly what I heard it say. Well, not straight away. It took me a while to tune into what was going on. So, after my workout I made sure that I planned some fun things for the following days. And guess what? Two days later I easily reached one of my exercise targets and set a new personal best. My mind and my body were well taken care of and worked amazingly as part of a team! Wooo!

Take Action!
The Mind is so influential; our physiology and internal chemistry too affect our motivation and ability to take action. So, we need to pay attention to looking after ourselves as an entirety. Which parts of your life are you not paying attention to? Are you having enough fun? Are you allowing yourself to have rewarding relationships with supportive people? Are you treating your body to healthy food and good exercise? Are you taking care of your finances so that you are not worrying about your security all the time? Are you bored of your food or exercise routine, or your social life or work? We need variety, and to feel fulfilled and that we are contributing to something!

What one small step can you take this week to remedy this? If you have more than one area that needs improving, pick the one that has the biggest impact on the other areas of your life.

Please do feel free to leave a comment below, Gorgeous! It’s great to share tips and experiences, and I personally love to hear what you are up to.

Have a fantastic weekend!

If you would like to have help with working towards your goals and balance body and mind you may be interested in my coaching programme. You can read about it here >>

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Feel free to share this article with others. Please just remember to include the following credit: © 2012 Johanna Best www.miss-best.com

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In April 2009 I bought a house. I wasn’t so much in love with the house as with the surroundings. Commuting distance from the center of Stockholm but set on a beautiful peninsula. Venturing outside the house, a two minute stroll would bring you to a peaceful lake, complete with a petite sandy beach and jetty that stretched out, out into the water towards the sunny horizon. If your legs took you further, a wooded path would take you along the water’s edge, across a meadow and back into the woods.

For lazier moments a giant garden with fruit trees and all-day sun (when Ms Sunshine was out to play) provided a grassy bed for reading and sky gazing.

But this house needed some work. For two and half years it was in varying states of progress. Paint pots. Boxes of homeless possessions while room x or y was being worked on. Dust. Oh the dust! Sometimes it felt pointless trying to be tidy. It never felt clean or orderly no matter how much one excelled at being a domestic goddess.

But now she is finally complete. She is enjoying her new beauty and flirts tremendously well, posing magnificently for photos and batting her luscious eyelids at anyone who cares to glance her way. And I am finding it so much easier to be a domestic goddess. Oh the joy of having decent storage! Oh the joy of living in new, sexy surroundings! And I find it very motivating to keep things clean and tidy for I can easily see the results.

Living in a bit of a mess for 2.5 years is a somewhat familiar feeling as it is how I feel about my body. There have been stages in my life where I haven’t exercised regularly, where I have been eating the wrong kind of foods. Comfort eating. Eating out of boredom. Eating just to feel something! My rationale then was ‘ well I look and feel like crap anyway, another tub of ice-cream / bottle of wine / 3 of Nigella Lawson’s fatty buns won’t make any difference.’

But when I am eating well and working out I feel good. It is so much easier to keep eating well and exercising when I can easily see the benefits and I certainly don’t want to regress to my previous state of a lumpy sack. Sure in the beginning it takes some work to get into the routine (for that is all it is!) of knowing what to eat and planning time for exercise, but after a while it becomes just part of your life. This is what I eat. This is how I spend some of my time. I work out. I am a runner or I go to the gym. I feel good.

Please don’t think I am bragging or looking down at anyone who doesn’t have the pleasure of feeling good. What I am trying to say is that if something is in a good state it is easier to keep it that way! Going from lumpy sack to bouncy goddess may require a bit of a push, but once you get going, momentum grabs you by your hand and pulls you half way.

This is one of the reasons I love coaching. It doesn’t have to be a life-long experience, but many people benefit from getting help in the early stages to find out what they want to achieve and how they can do it, and most importantly being supported by someone who cares so damn much about you achieving it that they will prod, poke and hug you into getting it done!

I have recently been working with a delicious woman business owner here in Stockholm. I helped show her what healthy foods to eat to increase her energy, loose weight, and beat those pesky sugar cravings. Just after one week she was looking so good! After a few months of working together she now has the knowledge and motivation to keep things ticking along the track she wants to follow by herself. Maybe she will want some more coaching in the future when she decides to approach new challenges, who knows! But for now she is looking and feeling so much better than a few months ago!

This is what she says “The advice and help she (Miss Best) has given will be priceless to me for many years to come and will help me to continue growing in both my business and personal life.” Read her full testimonial here!

If you feel that you need some help, encouragement and guidance to getting your momentum going to grab your life and business by the hand and dance in the direction you want it to go (rather than the other way round) then please feel free to get in touch! You don’t even have to live in Stockholm to work with me! Email: hello@miss-best.com

Have a fantastic weekend!

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My Love Christoffer has been engaged in a very cool personal experiment. Since August he has adopted one new routine per month to work towards improving his health, fitness and well-being.

The first one was to get up at 5am (!) in order to have time in the mornings for things he wants to do before leaving for work. So now he gets up, takes Pixie Dog for a nice walk in the forest, does some yoga and weight-bearing exercises, and works on his personal projects before heading off for the day. I am super proud of him. He is the first to admit that he has not previously been one for sticking at things. After the initial enthusiasm wears off the good habits get left at the wayside. But now he gets on with it, and as each month passes he has got in to a good routine, and each month adds something positive to his daily life.

His latest ‘good habit’ is doing push-ups. You can read about it here.

But I wonder how people react to such a blog post. Just like when someone Tweets or Facebooks that they are on a juice feast, running marathons, or succeeding in balancing productivity with relaxation. Is your first reaction ‘Yeah, nice for you, no need to brag about it. You want a medal or something’? Or do you think ‘ Wow!, good for them. Sounds like a great idea…I wonder how I would benefit from trying that.’ Maybe you feel a mixture of the both: an initial recoil, small feelings of jealousy perhaps. Then maybe you realise that hell, if they can do it so can you. And you go dig out your running shoes and look up that recipe for a yummy healthy smoothie.

I think it’s OK to feel a little negative at first, as long as you try to recognize why you want to put down their achievement. Are you perhaps making a comparison that if they are getting healthier, fitter, happier then it makes you less healthy, fit, happy? Does it remind you of a time when you tried to get in to a good habit but ‘failed’?

What would be most useful is if you can progress and be inspired by what they do. OK, so you may not be able to run a marathon straight away, but neither did they. Look at Christoffer’s chart in his blog post – he wasn’t too impressed by his initial results, but every day he gets better and better. And for the record, I can actually see the positive changes in his body. And even better is his sense of achievement and increasing well-being.

So please do try and take those small steps towards your goal, whatever it may be – you will get there! And along your journey you will doubtlessly inspire others too.

Now, where are those running shoes?

Image: said_w

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Through listening regularly to a BBC 2 radio show I came to learn of Sarah Outen’s challenge to become the first woman, and youngest and fastest person, to row solo from Western Australia to Mauritius. A journey of 3,100 miles across the Indian Ocean rowing her tiny boat ‘Serendipity’ “up to 12 hours a day under a scorching sun, riding 30ft waves, battling winds and currents, sharks, capsizes and shipping traffic.” Just reading those words from Sarah gives me the tingles. They are just words, but we can try and visualize her experience. However, set our imaginations free and I am sure we still have no idea of the intensity of this journey.

On Tuesday 3rd August, after 124 days at sea, 24 year old Sarah made her very rough but successful landing on the island of Mauritius, thus achieving her goal to enter the record books as well as helping raise money for charity in memory of her late father.

Following Sarah with her regular chats on the radio show when she always seemed upbeat and positive despite her progress, and through her blog, then finally hearing of her arrival thrills and chills me to such a great level I had to take a moment and ask myself why.

On a basic level the thought of being alone in the middle of the ocean at the mercy of the elements and fellow sea dwellers such as sharks and beautiful but giant whales sends my head spinning almost as much as when I try and grasp the concept of the vastness that lies beyond our galaxy. But on a deeper level I am moved by the challenge she set herself. It reminds me of the adventures that we all embark on. These adventures may not be as perhaps as huge or as physically risky as Sarah’s journey but they probably feel to us just as daunting and exciting.

To me, her journey at sea mirrors those times when you are on your adventure; some days you are smiling up at the blue sky, gazing in marvel at the things around you, rowing along with the tide almost effortlessly. A flat sea bringing wafts of foreign and exciting things. But like Sarah you also experience those times when the sea is raging, the sky is black and you can’t even try and plod onwards. Your only option is to just drop anchor to try and not get swept too far away from your path.

We are often alone on our own personal adventures, and though sometimes only we can make the decision (on either a conscious or sub-conscious level) whether we have the balls to continue with our adventure, the hero/ine of your story will always have the equivalent of Sarah’s radio back-up. Though they are not in the boat with you, your support crew of family and friends – people you have met in person and on line, and those who you don’t even know exist but are rooting for your success anyway – will be there for support, motivation and to send out the search boats should you send up a distress flare. I am sure that knowing this brought Sarah to those safe shores. Knowing this maybe even gave her the strength to come up with her personal challenge, put it into action and to slip in to the ocean in her boat on the first day of her voyage.

This was a huge adventure to embark upon but it should not overshadow our own challenges. What was the biggest adventure you have set sail on? Does it make you tingle now thinking of your journey: of the unknown, the actual voyage and the outcome (be it as you planned or not)?

I am sure that this adventure was just something Sarah had to do. Perhaps in order to progress in her life and to grow. I would be very surprised and impressed if I did anything on that level (I am pretty reserved when it come to physical danger) but my own journeys have been just as big to me. And the exciting thing is that when one has journeyed along one adventure and jumped nervously outside of one’s comfort zone the next adventure is probably even bigger and perhaps even more awe inspiring.

We may well take time in between each adventure to appreciate our efforts (regardless of the outcome), re-assess our lives and our ways of thinking and doing things, and to gain the inspiration and energy for the next challenge. Sarah will be writing a book about her experience before she plans her next challenge, and I for one am looking forward to what can only be an inspiring and thrilling read.

Wishing you courage and joy on your journeys, you wonderful spirited adventurer! Give me a wave when we cross paths out there in the vast sea of life.

Read about Sarah’s journey here: http://www.sarahouten.co.uk/

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