8 Steps to Food Freedom: Intention

1.  The first step to finding food freedom is all about uncovering what your intention is and your big WHYs for wanting to make peace with food and your body.
   

It’s about assessing where you’re at now and what areas of your life you want to focus on. Intention is all about getting really honest with yourself and uncovering the limiting beliefs that have been holding you back and identifying new, empowering beliefs.

I’m going to take you through my 8 step process for setting intuitive goals. You can think of your goals as a roadmap and reminder for how you want to live your life every day.

Setting intuitive goals allows you to:

• Align with the best version of yourself
• Attract what you need to achieve your goals
• Focus on who YOU are
• Recognize what your values are
• Create more positive emotional and physical energy
• Become more mindful of your day to day life

A few things to keep in mind:

• Only focus on the next 3-6 months
• Remain flexible
• Make it fun (put on some music, light a candle, sit on your back porch, diffuse some essential oils…whatever feels good for you)
• Let your intuition guide you

8 steps for setting intuitive goals:

Step 1: Assess Where You’re At

Before we get into assessing where you’re at, I want to teach you about primary and secondary food, something I learned while becoming an Integrative Nutrition Health Coach at the Integrative Institute for Nutrition.

Primary Food is your career, relationships, spirituality, home environment, career satisfaction and other lifestyle factors. We don’t just need nourishment from food; we need love, stability, a higher purpose and self-expression to thrive and feel our best.

Secondary Food is everything we consider as nutrition but is really just a secondary source of energy. The more primary food we have, the less we depend on secondary food to cope. And the more we depend on secondary food to cope, the less room we have for fulfilling other areas of our life.

The circle of life, a tool I learned at IIN, is a really helpful way to assess where you’re at now in terms of primary and secondary food. Basically, you just put a dot in each section of the pie chart indicating your level of satisfaction; closer to the center means less satisfied and closer to the outside means more satisfied. Then, connect the dots to see your circle of life. What areas of your life are out of balance? What areas do you want to focus on improving?

Now think about the top 3 feelings you want more of in your life. Write those down. What might change in your life if you experience these feelings more often?

Step 2: Brainstorm Your Dreams and Goals

Part 1: Imagine, dream, let it all out!

Give yourself a good chunk of time to brainstorm and really let yourself get into flow. Write down all of your ideas for what you want to accomplish on your journey to food freedom.

Part 2: Review your list and cross off any external goals that don’t feel aligned with who you really are. Use your intuition. If you feel tense and uneasy when you think about a goal, that’s your intuition telling you it’s not in alignment. If you feel free or a sense of excitement, you’re probably headed in the right direction with an intuitive goal.

Let’s talk about internal and external goals for a sec.

What are external goals?

External goals will make you seem successful to the outside world but they are not fulfilling because they’re rooted in how other’s perceive you. Having some external goals are fine (let’s be real…we all do) but when you’re seeking external validation, reaching these goals WILL NOT fulfill you. We all think, “when I get or do X, then I’ll be happy”. But IT NEVER WORKS like that. Ask yourself, do you really want those external goals because you believe it will genuinely make you feel good or do you want to impress people?

Examples:

• I want to lose weight
• I am going on diet XYZ Monday
• I will have the perfect house

What are internal goals?

Internal goals revolve more around trying to achieve a state of mind on a daily basis rather than a going after a destination. It’s about wanting to FEEL good every day. When you focus on the feelings you are really after, you are able to live in alignment with your true self because you’ll be in a constant state of achieving your goals.

Examples:

• I want to feel abundant every single day
• I will give up talking negatively about food and bodies (including my own)
• I will throw away my scale because that number tells me absolutely nothing about my health or worth
• I will find ways to move body that feel joyful and emotionally satisfying to me

Review your list and cross off any external goals that don’t feel aligned with the most authentic version of you.

Part 3: Review your list again and assess if you believe your goals are possible or not.

Give yourself goals that work within your belief system. If you create extreme goals that are so far out there, then you aren’t going to believe them and if you don’t believe in them, guess what? It’s probably not happening. I’m not saying these goals are not possible for you, but if you don’t believe them, then how do you expect to achieve them? Instead, set goals that are still a stretch but that are believable. This way, you have the confidence to achieve them but you’re also still up-leveling and growing.

Step 3: Debrief

Take a step back and reflect so you can move forward with clarity and intention. What did you love about the last year or last few months? What was difficult? What do you want to change? What has brought you the most fulfillment and happiness? Have you achieved any goals you’ve set for yourself recently? How did it feel?

Step 4: Determine Your Why

Choose your top 3-5 goals. Why do you want to achieve these goals? How do you want to feel? How will you feel if you achieve these goals? What will it mean for you to achieve the goals? What are the consequences of not taking action towards these goals?

Step 5: Take Inspired Action

What needs to happen in order for you to live out your goals? You can think of these as sub-goals. Write down your main goals with the inspired actions (sub-goals) you need to take beneath each. We call these sub-goals inspired actions because they aren’t just random actions; they are actions aligned with who you REALLY want to be and how you REALLY want to feel. What are the little steps you need to take to achieve your goals? What new habits and rituals do you plan to practice that will help you align with your goals?

Step 6: Surrender to Divine Timing

Be at peace knowing what you deserve and that your worth isn’t dependent on if you achieve your goals exactly as you planned them. Can you surrender control to make space for these goals? Say this affirmation or write it down 5 times: “I am choosing to believe that the universe gives me exactly what I need at exactly the right time”.

Step 7: Embody the Future Version of You

Who do you need to be to achieve these intuitive goals? What do you need to believe about yourself to be true in order to manifest these goals? If you were to already have achieved these goals, how would you feel? How would you act? What would you say/do/think? How would your relationships be affected? Are you truly excited about these goals? Is this the version of you that you really want to become?

If not, go back to choosing your goals and get honest with yourself. Write down who you need to be in order to achieve your goals; get really specific. Then actually DO those things and BE that version of you.

Step 8: Uncover and Transform Your Limiting Beliefs

Limiting beliefs are things you believe to be true that hold you back in some way. Look at your goals and write down why you think you haven’t accomplished them already. These are your limiting beliefs.

Example: If your goal is to feel free around food, you might not have accomplished it already because you believe you have to control what you eat in order to be healthy.

Write down where you think these limiting beliefs stem from.

Example: My parents always told me you have to watch what you eat to be healthy.

Write down what the consequences will be if you don’t change your beliefs.

Example: I’ll live my life stuck in a state of anxiety and won’t be able to be present with my family.

Choose new empowering beliefs.

Example: I can trust my body to tell me exactly what, when and how much to eat without having to control it. I am choosing to believe that I will achieve optimal health by listening to my body and releasing the need for control.

Now it’s time to put your thoughts into action. 

What are YOUR goals? What did you discover by doing this 8 step process?  I can’t wait to hear! Let’s chat in the comments below!!

Continue reading with the next step to food freedom: cultivate body awareness!