Health is a Lifestyle
It’s finally here. 2021 has come. We weathered the storm of 2020. It’s time to refocus, gathering what we have learned from the last year and redirecting our trajectory to new heights with new goals. How are you preparing for the next year? What are your goals? How are you going to set yourself up to conquer those goals?
With a new year, comes new year’s resolutions. This usually is presented by an enlightened perception to join the gym, clean up your meals and start the journey of becoming a better version of yourself. This is an excellent way to go about the new year and is the beginner’s guide to starting the process. But unfortunately that is not enough to achieve those goals.
Why do so many people find themselves falling off the wagon after the first month of the new year? In my opinion, the problem resides in the reality of the situation. You have created a lifestyle over the course of your life that has led you to this exact moment in reading this article. That is a lot of time that has built habits that aren’t going to be resolved in the next day, week, month or year. In the grand scheme of things, in order to make the changes you want to see in yourself, you will have to make a new lifestyle for yourself.
When I meet new clients, we talk a lot about the longevity of the process. Health isn’t found in “6min Abs”, 4-6 week eating challenges or 30-60 day fitness trials. It is only found in the process of creating a lifestyle surrounded by habits that will keep you consistent with those goals.
Last year we started 2020 off by discussing the five domains of health:
- Spiritual
- Physical
- Intellectual
- Social
- Emotional
All of these domains feed into your overall health. To neglect one is to neglect the rest, because they are all connected to each other. Each one bleeds over into the other to create the harmony of health.
In review:
Spiritual – Taking care of your well-being. How we think and feel about ourselves. What we do to destress or how we even handle stress all feed into our spiritual health.
Physical – The actions we take to make sure the body is healthy. The exercises we do and how often we do them. The food we eat. The body is a vessel for the soul. Keeping the body healthy and strong gives the soul a more peaceful ride through the journey of life.
Intellectual – What we do to sharpen our minds. The books we read, the shows we watch and where we tend to acquire our information all feed our intellect. The mind and the body are connected. The physical body refreshes the mind and the mind then perceives a more positive outcome. In other words, keep the mind sharp to sharpen the body. Iron sharpens iron.
Social – The people with which you surround yourself and the places we hang out the most. Proverbs 27:17 “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” The person or persons we talk to about stress in our lives. Mentors who help guide us in our life. These all feed our social health.
Emotional – How we handle stress and our ability to overcome it. Also our ability to effectively communicate those emotions to others.
Where do you find yourself lacking? Maybe 1, maybe 2, or maybe it’s an all-encompassing process that needs re-engineering. Whatever it may be, understanding that health is a lifestyle, not a temporary state at which we get to maintain over the course of our life, will be the ticket to becoming successful with your new year’s goals. We have to tend to our health daily. This daily concept is sometimes overwhelming, but no one has ever climbed Mount Everest in a single day. It’s a process to acclimate to the elevation before you can even start the ascent up the mountain.
Think about that in terms of your own mountain of health. When you start the ascent toward a healthier version of yourself, you have to acclimate to the new habits you are creating, and it’s without a doubt going to take some time before the routine sets in.
I will leave you with this quote by the 26th President, Theodore Roosevelt.
Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty… I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.
-Theodore Roosevelt
