How badly do you want it? What are you willing to do in order to have it? If you want to live a healthy life, age gracefully, stay far away from illnesses, feel and look great, what will it take? Would healthy nutrition, exercise, meditation be the three main ingredients to having a healthy body and mind?

The easiest way to find out just how badly you want it is to look at the results you now have in your life. Imagine you are in a dark room with only a torch light, you will only be able to see the section of the room that you shine your torch on – true? Same goes with your results, you will have results in the areas that you truly want them in. 

We all have results, the thing to discover here is if your results are consistent with what you say you want. So let’s look at your life holistically for a few moments. Imagine that we have a wheel with spokes and each spoke represents a different area of your life. Now rate yourself on a scale of 0 to 10 in each area. 10 meaning you are very satisfied with your results and your feelings around this area and 0 meaning you are very disappointed with your results.

Remember that you don’t have to fit into societal expectations in order to feel truly happy and satisfied, for example, you could be single and feel absolutely great about relationships because you love your own company, you date on your terms and you are surrounded by love from everyone in your life (9 or 10), the same way how you could be married and feel empty and lonely (2 or 0).

Similarly, you could be a size XL and you are confident and sexy and healthy in your own body or you could be skinny as a model and still have body image issues. So this self-analysis is a great way for you to see what is important to you and where you feel that your desires and your results are inconsistent.

Once your results are plain to see, you will be able to identify all the areas that you have been “shining your torch on” and if you want better results in the others then all you need to do is decide and declare. So what do you want and how badly do you want it?

Another interesting visual from this wheel will happen when you connect your markings, if you rated most areas at 7 to 9, you will have a fairly round and fairly large wheel, if however you have some 2s and 3s and a few 9s and 10s you will notice that you are riding through life on a very wonky wheel.

If health is what you want, when was the last time you did a self breast examination, went for a mammogram, did a blood test to discover what your hormone levels are or whether you are deficient in any of the essential vitamins and minerals or visited the dentist? Do you eat what’s on offer all the time, or have you made some decisions about what you want to put into your body daily? If you want to look the best you can, how many habits have you got in place that will slowly and surely take you either closer to or further way from the health you desire? This ties in with the idea of empowering habits.

The first thing that needs to change is the way you are looking at it and then only you can change your actions. Hence the question how badly do you want it? Why do you want it? What will having it do for you? What do you think having it will change in your life? Getting clear on your reasons will help you stay on the course. Changing your eating habits and your exercise routine will help you shed some kilos and become healthier if done right, however the most important health decision you can make is to decide to FEEL good. 

What do you say to yourself most of the time, how kind are you to yourself in your self talk and how much time a day do you spend with yourself going in, instead of looking outward? When you instill habits of going in you will be able to make a “best-friend” of yourself and you will know this when you stop asking your mother, siblings, friends or partners what to do all the time and start making decisions – big and small ones yourself, because you know what you want and you know what will help you get there.

Drawing, writing, dancing, mindful exercising or sitting by yourself are all ways to go in. Meditation may be the ultimate goal, but you can start where you are. 

Decide which areas of your life you want new results in and then make some solid decisions about how you are going to get there. When you have pre-decided based on your goals, it will make it easier to make choices when temptations are put in front of you which way to go.

Malti Bhojwani is the founder of Multi Coaching International, a Life Coach, an NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) practitioner, a workshop leader and an author. Her first published work is a Journal to encourage guided writing, Thankfulness, Appreciation, Gratitude – My Journal is available in all good book stores.