Click

Think about the last time you started something new. A class, a walking route, a way of eating. For the first few days you had what is sometimes called beginner's mind. You were a bit excited. You felt light and full of promise.

Now imagine you had taken a photograph of that feeling.

That is the whole idea. When you feel good, in your body and in yourself, stop for one second and take a mental snapshot. Click. Then keep the picture.

Why it works

When you feel good, everything about you changes. There is a lightness in your step. You stand taller. Your face is brighter. You feel like looking after yourself, so you eat better and move more, and the whole thing feeds itself.

If you caught sight of yourself in a mirror in one of those moments, you would see the person you keep trying to become. You are already there. You just do not stay very long.

The snapshot is how you learn to stay. First for a minute, then an hour, then most of a day.

Three places to take one

1. Move. Something small. A walk round the block, a yoga class, ten minutes at the park with the dog. Somewhere in the middle there will be a moment when it feels good to be in your own body. Click.
2. Change one meal. Only one. Breakfast is an easy place to try it: something fresh in place of whatever you usually reach for. Do not worry about the rest of the day. An hour later, notice how you feel. If the answer is stronger and a little pleased with yourself, click.
3. Do something you want to do. It does not have to be your great passion. It only has to leave you content while you are doing it: a book, a walk, an hour in the shops, a game of something. Put one hour of it in the calendar this week. Click. Next week, two.

That last one sounds too simple to count. Ask yourself when you last gave an hour to something for no reason except that you like it. After thirty years of looking after other people, most of us have to think hard.

The order matters

We are sold the other way round: fix how you look, and then you will feel better. Creams first, joy later.

Focus on how you feel, and how you look will follow.

From the archive. First written for my journal years ago, and rewritten for life after 50.