How I’m Going to Do More Yoga and Live a Better Life Part 3

Life gets in the way

Between Sue-ellen and myself I missed a couple of scheduled appointments due to migraine attacks. It’s honestly such a relief that Sue-ellen gets it and understands that this is not an excuse because I don’t want to but that my brain genuinely does not work during an attack! It’s been about four weeks since my last coaching session (I really want to put “Bless me Father for I have sinned” at the front of that sentence!)

Today was quite intense. We talked a lot about imposter syndrome and self-esteem, which have emerged as probably the biggest challenges that I need to deal with right now.

The good

But let’s start with the good! The first few sessions have been about building my morning routine in a way that includes self-care. While this is important for everyone, it is especially relevant when you live with a chronic illness. A lifetime of experience tells me that my migraine condition is much better behaved when I eat healthy food, get regular exercise, and manage my stress. Much as it pains me “powering through” is just not an option for me anymore. I need to move gently and take good care of my body. If I don’t, there will be consequences.

My version of self-care involves regular yoga and meditation and eating a healthy, keto diet. If you follow my blog, you might have seen the graphs of my progress on my post about the 5 Second Rule. Here’s how things are looking one month in after my lightbulb moment leading to a perfect mood score:

Here is the mood vs. health score over the past three months. The mood line starts a bit before the last coaching session. A health score is a summary of the different health factors that gyrosco.pe tracks.

This is mood vs. yoga.

This is mood vs. meditation.

mood vs. sleep.

And sleep has also been improving.

So, lots of good, upward trends there. Having pretty graphs makes me happy, so I am confident that I can keep these habits going. It is obvious that they are good for me.

The Bad

This brings me to my difficulty with imposter syndrome and self-confidence. How do I measure that? How can I track my progress? I have started to incorporate these themes into my meditation and journaling, but right now I have no idea if it is helping or not. I do not like being without a logical plan – it feels as if my efforts are wasted if I cannot make a graph. Such is the sad life of the INFJ (if you don’t know what this means, google Myers-Briggs personality type).

My gyroscope app doesn’t measure mood in enough detail to assess confidence. It can break the overall mood score into happiness, energy, social, and wellness. I do not think I can graph against those factors, but I will dig in a bit and see. Social might be close, but I do not think it quite captures all of it.

The ugly

It’s not ugly at all to ask for help, but I kind of locked myself into the heading.

So, I am throwing this out to you, my readers. What is a good proxy variable for self-confidence that I can measure? (and yes, only an INFJ would use the phrase “proxy variable” in casual conversation!) The less effort required to collect the data, the better. Do you know of any apps, rating scales, or scientifically proven correlations that might work here? I would love to hear your ideas in the comments.

If you want to check out gyrosco.pe/ai, please add me as a friend. My username is bren.

And if you think coaching might work for you, please check out Original Balance. Sue-ellen is a ninja!!!

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