Your Current Health Is A Summary Of Your Choices

That title will probably annoy some people, and to be honest, I am okay with that because before you read any further, I want to make something very clear. I am not saying that your health is entirely your fault, nor am I suggesting that everyone starts from the same place. You do not get to choose your genetics, you do not get to choose every circumstance that life throws at you, and you certainly do not get to choose every challenge, responsibility, or stressful period that comes your way.

What you do get to choose, though, is how you respond to those circumstances, and I think that is where many people underestimate the amount of influence they have over their future health and wellbeing.

The reason I wanted to write this article is because I regularly hear people say they want to lose weight, have more energy, feel more confident, improve their health, or simply get back to feeling like themselves again. Yet when we start looking at the decisions they make every day, it becomes clear that their actions are often taking them in the opposite direction to where they say they want to go.

That is not criticism. It is simply an observation.

Most people do not wake up one day overweight, exhausted, stressed, and unhappy with their health. Equally, people do not wake up one day leaner, fitter, stronger, and full of energy. Both outcomes are usually the result of hundreds, if not thousands, of small decisions repeated over time.

The Choices That Don't Feel Like Choices

One of the biggest things I have noticed over the years is that many people view certain habits as circumstances when they are actually choices.

Staying up until midnight scrolling through social media feels harmless because it is often the only time you get to yourself after a busy day. Watching another episode on Netflix feels justified because you have worked hard and want to switch off. Grabbing a meal deal on the way to work feels easier than preparing food the night before. Having another coffee because you are tired feels normal.

Individually, none of these decisions seem particularly significant. The problem is that they rarely happen once.

One late night becomes several. One takeaway becomes a habit. One coffee becomes four or five every day. One missed workout becomes a month without exercise. Before long, people find themselves in a position they never intended to be in and wonder how they got there.

The answer is usually found in the decisions they have been repeating for months or years.

What makes this difficult is that many of those decisions feel reasonable in the moment. After all, who has not thought, "I'll start on Monday", "I've earned this takeaway", or "I'll focus on my health when work calms down a bit"?

The challenge is that Monday rarely comes, work rarely calms down, and life always seems to find a new reason to push your health further down the priority list.

The Story We Tell Ourselves

The phrase I probably hear most often is, "I don't have time."

Now, I know that sounds harsh, but I genuinely believe that for many people this becomes a story rather than a reality. What they often mean is that they have not made their health a priority, and there is a big difference between the two.

We all have responsibilities. We all have work commitments. We all have family obligations. We all have periods where life feels overwhelming.

The question is whether your actions match the outcomes you say you want.

If I spent a day following you around, would I find twenty minutes for a walk? Would I find thirty minutes to prepare some food? Would I find opportunities to improve your sleep? Would I identify time spent doing things that are not moving you towards the life you say you want?

In most cases, I think I probably would.

What people often lack is not time. It is awareness of where that time is actually going.

Even Coaches Get It Wrong

I am certainly not writing this from a position of perfection because I make poor choices from time to time as well.

In fact, only recently I had one of those mornings where everything seemed to go wrong. I slept through my alarm, my son did not want to get up, he did not want breakfast, he did not want to get dressed, and he definitely did not want the rain cover on because the weather was terrible.

By the time everything was sorted, we were around an hour and a half late.

Because I was tired, I made different decisions to the ones I would normally make. I had more caffeine than usual, I ate more carbohydrates than I would typically have, and within a couple of hours I felt sluggish, uncomfortable, and nowhere near as productive as I normally am.

The interesting thing is that I knew exactly why I felt that way.

One poor decision is not the problem.

One poor night's sleep is not the problem.

One takeaway is not the problem.

The issue comes when those decisions become your default setting and are repeated day after day, week after week, and year after year.

Good Choices Beat Perfect Choices

One of the reasons people struggle with health and fitness is because they think they need to be perfect. They think they need the perfect diet, the perfect training programme, the perfect meal plan, and the perfect week.

Life does not work like that.

I tend to look at choices through a slightly different lens. Rather than viewing them as good or bad, I think about them as optimal, suboptimal, and non-optimal.

🟢 An optimal choice moves you closest towards your goal.

🟡 A suboptimal choice is not perfect but still reasonably aligned.

🔴 A non-optimal choice takes you further away from where you want to be.

For example, a meal built around real foods, quality protein, healthy fats, and vegetables would be an optimal choice. Having something that is mostly right but includes some processed carbohydrates might be suboptimal. Living on takeaways, snacks, and convenience foods would be non-optimal.

The same applies to exercise. A focused thirty-minute workout where you genuinely challenge yourself can be far more beneficial than spending two hours wandering around a gym, sitting on your phone between sets, and convincing yourself that simply being there is enough.

The goal is not perfection.

The goal is making more choices that move you forwards than backwards.

The Cost Of Convenience

Something I find fascinating is how much money people spend on convenience while simultaneously telling themselves they cannot afford to invest in their health.

A coffee on the way to work.

A meal deal at lunchtime.

A takeaway because they cannot be bothered to cook.

None of those purchases seem particularly expensive in isolation, but when you add them together over the course of a week, a month, or a year, the numbers become surprisingly large.

What is even more interesting is that many people convince themselves they have earned those things because they have done some exercise.

I have always found that mindset strange.

Saying you have earned a takeaway because you went for a run is a bit like saying you have done something positive for your health and now want to cancel part of it out. The intention and the action do not match.

If your goal is to become healthier, fitter, leaner, or more energetic, then your daily actions need to start supporting that goal more often than they work against it.

Every Choice Is A Vote

One of my favourite ways to think about this is that every choice you make is a vote for the person you want to become.

Every walk is a vote.

Every workout is a vote.

Every earlier night is a vote.

Every nutritious meal is a vote.

Likewise, every unnecessary takeaway, every extra hour of scrolling, every poor night's sleep, and every excuse you tell yourself is also a vote.

You are constantly casting votes for your future self, whether you realise it or not.

The challenge is that most people become obsessed with outcomes while ignoring the behaviours that create them. They focus on losing weight, building confidence, improving energy, and feeling healthier, but spend very little time examining the decisions that are producing their current results.

Where Will These Choices Take You?

If nothing changes, where do your current choices lead?

Five years from now, what happens if you continue sleeping poorly, relying on convenience food, avoiding exercise, drinking too much caffeine, and convincing yourself you do not have time?

The answer is probably not somewhere you want to go.

Your health will likely deteriorate. Your confidence will probably suffer. Your energy levels will continue to decline, and the habits themselves will become more deeply ingrained and harder to change.

Now imagine the alternative.

Imagine making slightly better decisions every day. Not perfect decisions. Just better ones.

🚶 Walking a little more.

💧 Drinking more water.

😴 Sleeping better.

🥗 Preparing food more often.

📱 Spending less time scrolling.

The difference between those two futures becomes enormous when viewed over five years.

Final Thoughts

This article is not about blame, guilt, or making you feel bad about the choices you have made in the past. It is about recognising that if your current health is a summary of your choices, then your future health can be influenced by the choices you make next.

You do not need to overhaul your life overnight. You do not need the perfect plan. You do not need to wait until Monday, the new month, or the next holiday.

You simply need to start making slightly better choices more consistently.

Because every decision you make today is helping shape the life you will be living tomorrow.

And the question worth asking yourself is this:

If your daily choices are votes for the person you are becoming, who are you voting for right now?

John

Find out more information on how you can improve your health at www.jbryantcoaching.com