Welcome to the first lesson of the Habits for Health eCourse. This lesson is of utmost importance because it’s the lesson where we establish ‘what is your why?’ “When you know your why, you will find your how.” (source unknown). To establish your why we want to get as specific as possible. And in order to get to specifics, we need to take note of the baseline. This will help us to assess what can be improved. It will also give us something to look back on… and reflect on how far we have come. Please download and print the Habits for Health workbook which you will find in the downloads section of this lesson. Remember to resist the urge to flick through the entire book and instead, focus only on this lesson ‘What is your Why’ for now. In the workbook, let’s start establishing your baseline. Please give yourself a rating based on a scale of 1-5 (1 being poorest, 5 being exceptional) against the following criteria. Energy levels Digestive health General fitness Sleep quality Skin health Clarity of thinking Mental wellbeing General aches/pains Headaches/migraines Immune health Stress levels Cardiovascular health You will notice there are 3 blanks in the table under cardiovascular health. You can create your own criteria here if applicable. If there is nothing else you can think of to improve, simply leave these 3 blanks. On your handout, in your workbook there is also a spot for ‘notes.’ This is where you can expand on your baseline symptoms. For example, next to energy levels you may want to write ‘feel like I need a nap by 2 pm.’ Or if your digestion is poor, you may want to note specifically what concerns you e.g. feeling bloated all the time or not being regular, etc. More detail is better…often when we start to improve, we FORGET how poor things were, to begin with, and we don’t realize how much we are changing! You may also have 1 (or a few) overarching reasons for wanting to change your habits. This could be a burning desire to achieve something.. Maybe you want to get healthier so you can run a marathon? OR maybe you just desperately want something to change. Make sure you detail this at the bottom of your sheet too; that’s what all those extra lines are for. And that’s a wrap! If you have filled in the ‘WHY do you want to change your habits’ worksheet in your workbook you are ready to move on. We now have your WHY which is a great motivation to get started. See you in the next lesson. Quote: “There’s a critical threshold for habits…. Sometimes we change a few habits… and see no difference….But creating habits is a compound process… just like compound interest. Habits need to hang around long enough and consistently enough for a big change to result.” (James Clear)