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Jody Sullivan
​Health & Wellness Major
One Step is the First Step to living Healthy
Confidence • Passion • Commitment
My Philosophy
Confidence is key. Hard work ethic, will power, and determination are qualities necessary to successfully lead a healthy and positive life. There is no room for negative self talk, that must all go out the window, positive vibes only. Goals will never be fully achieved if you do not believe in yourself. The body achieves what the mind believes.
Thought Process
Throughout my studies of Health & Wellness I have learned many things, which has lead to a greater knowledge of healthy living. I have been able to piece together the fundamentals of a healthy life style into a health or life philosophy. I have determined that there are two key aspects that lead to a fully healthy life. being physically fit, with exercising and eating right is huge towards healthy living, but there is another whole side to this that is equally as important which is being mentally fit. To me this means resting well (getting enough sleep) and being positive. Self talk is a word you'll hear me say a lot, which means the way you think and talk to yourself in your head, having only positive self talk does wonders for a person with whatever they want to do. A motto that I came up with to go with my website is "one step is the first step to living healthy" this means to me that taking that one step in the direction of whatever it is you want to do, in this case being healthy, is the first step to achieving your goal. You must get yourself to actually do it in the beginning before it becomes a lifestyle, which is why I say "living healthy" instead of "being" healthy because you can't just be healthy you must adopt it as a lifestyle, in order to reap all the benefits.
My Experience
I have always been a healthy person, when it comes to exercising, being active, and eating right. I always thought that was all you pretty much needed to be healthy and preform at high levels when it came to my hockey. I never thought to much about the mental side of things, I didn't even think it was that important. When I started playing junior hockey in Canada, I was pretty good, but I was no top goal scorer or anything, I'd average 25 points in a 60 game season. With that being said there was always a part of me that thought I could definitely be that goal scorer type of player, I just needed to shake the label I had as a power forward and be given a chance. In the off season going into my 20 year old final season of junior hockey, the coach who had me labeled was no longer with us and we had got a new head coach, I was ecstatic knowing this was my chance. I began to train harder and eat better than before to reach my goal. Throughout that summer my dad had heard things about a sports psychologist and asked if I would be interested, I willing agreed, not thinking much of it. I would sit down with this psychologist named went once or twice a week. Went and I would talk about me and the strengths that I thought I had and how I saw myself, we would do little exercises both mentally and physically. The biggest thing I took from Went was "self talk". It was this concept of how people speak to themselves in their own head and it can be applied to anything, but In my case I applied it to hockey. He stressed how positive self talk can do wonders and really make you believe in yourself, if something bad happened you had to let it go and begin to think positively again. Along with self talk came visualization, with telling yourself you can do something and then actually taking the time to visualize yourself doing it, it will increase your chance to succeed. Long story short, I took all of my hard work and everything Went and I discussed and went head first into my last season, before college. With this newly found confidence, which I had the whole time just needed some advice on how to maintain it, I was able to lead my team in goals and points totally 63 points in 60 games. Playoffs then rolled around and I was able to not only lead my team in goals and points, but the entire league as well, my team then eventually fell short in game 7 of the championship round where we lost by a goal. If there is anything that I can be certain of through my experience, it is that a strong combination of both being physically fit and mentally fit can do wonders for a healthy and positive lifestyle.
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