Yesterday I had a mini entrepreneurial breakdown … cue the violins.

You see, I’m a Chiropractor yes but also an entrepreneur. I run the entire business myself! Well, that is mostly true. I have a videographer who helps me with big projects; a remote IT guy I’ve never met, an accountant in England and Canada and that’s the lot!

By the way, this story is shortly going to relate to my  Top 5 Posture Hacks, so bare with.

The problem with being a creative entrepreneur is that NEW is always attractive. This entrepreneur can suffer boredom, perfectionism, the I’m not making a big enough difference in the world dilemma, the what is my purpose inquiry, and the business blues.

Yesterday I decided I needed to re-visit the Back To Basics of running a business and this is where your posture enters the story. I’d hit a wall. I was drifting and procrastinating and not getting the job done. Sound familiar?

Not living up to my business potential is not OK with me and I’m guessing, not improving your posture, is not OK with you either, but it happens. You viewed some of my videos, maybe you’ve read one of  my books or started one of my courses and now you find yourself back to where you were, before you found me.

Guess what? That’s ok … you’re human. You’re in a rut and I’m going to help you out.

So instead of watching something on Netflix last night, I reached out for support. I started reading blog posts and watching videos. Turns out there is just a few (wink) of us business men and women who have hit a wall!

You know that saying that goes something like this:

When you hit rock bottom, the only way to go is up?

I know, it’s a little cliché but it’s true. I’m guessing that like me, you aren’t down and out and right at the bottom, but merely in a rut – lacking motivation and needed a good dose of inspiration to revive your commitment to your health and body alignment (posture).

After an hour of web research and finding some pretty fab videos, I started writing …

I made a plan and I’d like to help you do the same. So I’m going back to basics and it occurred to me, that going back to basics is exactly what is needed for those of you who have fallen off the good posture wagon.

Over the next few weeks, I’m going to share my Top 5 Posture Hacks. When it comes to my posture, this is one area of my life that is always working and I’m going to tell you exactly how I make that happen.

Let’s start at the beginning. When I first began this health journey (about 25 years ago), posture wasn’t even on my mind. Chronic low back pain and headaches was on my mind. I didn’t know it at the time, but chronic back pain and headaches is often a sign of incorrect body alignment, or poor posture.

It would take me many years of Chiropractic treatment and about 7 years of study to understand how the structure of the body could go wrong and exactly what was needed to ultimately re-align my body (good posture), restore body confidence, reduce and ultimately eliminate my chronic pain.

Posture Hack # 1 – Create The Environment

Environmental cues are the objects in your surroundings that cause you to behave in a certain way.  Your decisions are largely influenced by what’s around you:

• There is a TV in your bedroom, you go to bed watching TV.
• You spend your free time with friends who gossip and you find yourself gossiping and feeling lousy.
• Your kitchen is a cluttered mess; you eat a lot of ready-made dinners.

I’ve been wanting to meditate for years and have dipped in and out but have never been successful creating a daily meditation habit. When I looked around my house, there was nowhere that I wanted to meditate. There was nothing in my environment that called me to meditate. I decided to change that.

I took one of the smallest corners in my house and transformed it. I went out into the woods and found a beautiful log – a very large log – and dragged it out of the forest on my scooter.

Over the next few weeks, I cut, sanded and sealed and added legs. I bought a small rug, ordered a beautiful purple meditation cushion, hung two favourite paintings and a wall hanging – weaved in the Congo from Palm.

I now have a beautiful meditation corner and it is an absolute pleasure for me to sit quietly and meditate. It is no longer a chore!

We often think that achieving a task is just about getting out there and doing it. We believe that if we desire it, we will find a way to achieve our goals.

But our environment dictates what we choose to do. If you have objects around you that are distracting and leading to undesirable outcomes, then it becomes hard to make the right choices.

On the flip side, having an environment that only has desirable objects(like my beautiful meditation corner), that compels me to do what’s important to me – meditate.

So if you want to work on reducing pain, improving your body confidence and fixing your body alignment (posture), take a look around you and see how you can make it more convenient to do so.

Often, we think that change comes from within. We believe that achieving a goal is about changing ourselves. We often fail to consider how optimizing our environment to make better choices can make a large impact on our actions.

Design Your Surroundings to Encourage Action

Try some of the following ways to create an environment that calls you to Posturecise:

1. Choose an area of the house that will become YOUR area to posturecise
2. De-clutter the area
3. Paint your space (check out my vibrant laundry room colour below)
4. Buy yourself an attractive new workout outfit
5. Put speakers in your area, so you can play music
6. Hang an inspiring fitness poster or painting
7. Add plants

What are you adding to your new space? I’d love to see a picture when you’re finished!