How To Get The Most Out Of The Next Month

As with any project, the more you put in, the more you will get out. Below are some suggestions to get the most out of The Body Confident Project.

Where Are You Now?

These four questions will give you a good starting point for this work. Take some time before the first date to journal your thoughts on them.

This Is A Rumspringa, Not A Test

Hopefully you have read the info about the Rumspringa in these introductory materials. This is an experiment, an exploration. Not a test! You don’t have to be good at body confidence. It is something you develop. There is no success or failure in a Rumspringa - just useful data. Not everything will work like gangbusters for you. I know there will be challenges, so I have designed it deliberately so that there are fun dates and ‘Ooh, isn’t that fascinating?’ dates mixed in with the dates that you may feel more unsure about.

You would not expect an Amish teenager to pass or fail their Rumspringa - they learn from it and hopefully discover strengths they never knew they had. This is my intention for you over these 30 dates.

Get Your Expectations Right
The fundamental question at the heart of the BCP is: Can any woman come to accept her body within the space of a month?

The only expectation I want you to have is to answer that question. Perhaps the answer will be ‘sometimes’ or ‘definitely not 24/7 - but more than I had ever thought’

If you get part way there, would you be happy?

I do not think we can wipe out years - and in many cases, decades - of body hatred in 4 weeks, but what I have learnt from going through this process myself and coaching clients to do the same is that it is possible to start to build real, genuine body confidence in the next month. There will be practices I teach you that you can continue to use on day 31. This month is just the beginning. The key is consistently doing the exercises beyond the end of this month.

The 90% Daily Rule

The BCP consists of 30 daily dates with yourself. Most will take you 20 minutes or less to go through.

I want you to commit to the best of your ability to show up for each date every day. If you have prior commitments that make this impossible (eg you are attending a wedding), then write that in your diary or calendar as a day off the BCP. Simply do that date a day later. This is energetically very different from ‘I didn’t feel like it today. Missed another BCP date...oh well’.

A great rule to have is to do at least 90% of the dates during the 30 days. This means you can say to yourself that you have 3 days out of the 30 where if life happens (the dog is sick then the washing machine breaks then you have to sort problem X out), you have a bit of elbow room to miss those 3 days.

Tick the days off in your diary etc and why not get yourself a reward once you have done 10 dates, then again after date 20 and 30? (Spoiler alert: date 30 will be fun anyway).

Set A Regular Time Every Day

You will achieve this 90% rule more easily if you do each date at the same time every day. It becomes embedded into your subconscious more easily that way.

When can you set 20 minutes aside for yourself every day over the next month?

Get A Journal/ Set Up Voice Notes

There will be some reflective exercises, with journalling questions. There will be some practical exercises, like She Looks Great! which you will do very soon. Writing or recording your thoughts about everything you do will help organise them, and also process anything that feels new or confusing.

I have progressed from written journalling to recording my thoughts on my phone, because it saves time. You can recordinto a voice notes app. What I like is sending myself WhatApp voice messages (it has a great feature where you can push the mic icon up the screen and not have to hold your finger on it all the time you are speaking). Before I record my voice message, I write a quick written message as a title eg 'Breakthrough about shame talking to Alice' so I can find it at a later date if I need to.

One Last Thing...

Finally, I want to make the BCP a living, breathing record of everyone’s experience. This is so important to let other women see all of our responses to help inspire them. You will see that I include quotes from previous participants in some of the pages. I may ask you if I can use certain quotes from check ins (if you have chosen that option) or feedback. I always ask permission for each individual quote and if I can use a first name. There is no pressure to have your words included. If you wish me to use a different name for your quotes, no problem.

At the end of the course there will be an opportunity for you to provide feedback. I offer coaching sessions and check ins as a thank you if I can turn some of the feedback into a testimonial.