Are you a one trick pony?
Do you tend to focus only on one area of your Thriving Health?
In this post I will share the 4 Essential Elements of an active, healthy, and happy lifestyle and how each influences the others to either support your goal or knock you off track once again.
Which direction you take is completely up to you!
Recently I wrote of The 4 Primary Pains Limiting Thriving Health. When you decided to step onto your path of Thriving Health you likely did so because one or more of those pains was impacting your life and your ability to live it happily and freely.
What action step(s) did you choose to alleviate that pain?
How did you go about working on your goal?
If you’re like most people you chose one thing. For example if you primary intention was to release weight you may have chosen to focus on nutrition and healthy eating. Perhaps you followed a strict “diet” believing it alone would deliver the results you wanted.
Let me tell you about Greg. Greg is a high level executive at a large local corporation. His primary pain was his desire to lose weight. He wanted to do so because he was diagnosed with high blood pressure and high cholesterol. He was obese. His doctor gave him his wake up call at his recent annual medical suggesting he change his lifestyle or may be headed for a serious consequence with his health.
Wake up call received. The message heard was lose weight and all would be good. From past attempts, media influence, and the challenge of a highly demanding job Greg chose to “diet” to achieve his goal. It was his only focus.
Greg sat all day long. At his desk, in meetings, driving to and from work and meetings. He was extremely inactive. He was responsible for a multi-million dollar department overseeing a team of hundreds. He was under intense pressure in terms of deadlines, budget, and leading his global team. His day involved rushing out the door in the morning grabbing a coffee, lunches either eating at his desk while working or at restaurants in meetings or not at all, and dinners doing much of the same. He worked into the evening and always took work home. His “down” time was spending some time with his wife and kids before doing some more work later in the evening.
He’d head straight to bed from working on his laptop and lie there with his head swirling still working on the problems of the day. Eventually falling asleep, Greg would awaken sleep deprived and start it all over again.
Did his “diet” work? In a word, NO!
Given his hectic pace and the patterns firmly established in his day to day world, maintaining a typically restrictive “diet” was virtually impossible. Unconscious habits combined with the influence of his lifestyle led to his falling off track then restarting his “diet” over and over. Each time he’d beat himself up over his inability to sustain it.
So no only did Greg NOT release weight as he’d hoped, the underlying conditions he was worried about got worse. Now, on top of this, he noticed he could no longer play with his kids because his knees began to ache every time he tried to bend down to play at their level.
His lack of results towards Thriving Health and his experience trying to achieve them took it’s toll on Greg, physically and emotionally. He was at a loss. He was sure he was doing what he needed to do but… it was not working.
Does Greg’s story resonate with you?
Yours may not be the same story but perhaps the pattern is similar.
The point!
You Are An Indivisible Whole
Please make note of these critical factors.
- A one step approach seldom works and is unsustainable.
- The primary pain you initially focused on is likely only part of your overall concern.
- Your initial goal focus is probably pretty superficial and you likely have deeper underlying (maybe unconscious) goals that are even more meaningful.
- Those deeper goals are at the heart of why achieving and sustaining Thriving Health is important to you.
- In order to realize those deeper goals ALL 4 essential elements of an active, healthy, and happy lifestyle must be considered and integrated into your new lifestyle.
The 4 Essential Elements of an active, healthy, and happy lifestyle
- Mindful and Nutritious Eating
- Effective Exercise and Physical Activity
- Adequate Sleep, Rest, and Renewal
- Releasing Stress
Each of these plays a significant role in enhancing the impact the others have on your path of Thriving Health and the FREEDOM it delivers. At the same time lack of attention to any one of these elements can lead to it derailing each other element causing you to crash and fall off track again.
In Greg’s case failing to recognize the value of exercise and overall physical activity limited the metabolic impact on his goal of releasing weight and limited his functional ability in doing something truly important to him; playing with his kids. Failing to see that he was chronically sleep deprived influenced his lack of willingness towards exercise and his unconsciously poor nutritional choices. It also added to his stress. Continually living with high stress adversely impacted restorative sleep and his underlying health issues.
Each had a negative influence on the others in a downward spiral.
Despite his best intention, not realizing the indivisible whole resulted in a severely negative influence on knocking his best efforts at dietary change off track.
You are a whole person. Your body is one body. A whole body, whole person approach ensures you awaken to ALL influences present or that will come forth. A whole body, whole person approach will enable you to shift all that needs shifting so that you can slowly embrace and integrate your active, healthy, and happy lifestyle so that it STICKS and remains sustainable forever!
Re-evaluate your goals and begin to address each element in a manner that works in your hectic day to day life.
Remember…
“Life is meant to be embraced, enjoyed and fully lived, not merely endured!”
To your health,
Brent
Be an advocate of Thriving Health. Please share this to anyone you feel would appreciate receiving this message. Thanks for your support. I appreciate it.
Beginning with a degree in exercise science and kinesiology, Brent Haydey has evolved over thirty years as an entrepreneur; building four businesses, and as a health, executive, and life coach.