Looking after yourself will take a composite hybrid approach to a better life, assuring you have the resources to stay on the top of your game.
Whether you’re a soccer mom, an emergency room nurse, firefighter, law enforcement officer, or the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, you best be taking the time out to look after yourself.
Think about it, yes people depend on you to deliver the goods, and look good while you’re doing it, but what resources are you drawing upon? You are drawing water from your well.
What if your well runs dry? Then where will you be?
What about all those people who depend on you? Where will they be?
It’s up to you to make looking after yourself just as much, if not more of, a responsibility as “being there” for others. If you don’t, your days of service may be numbered.
Your body is the gift you were given to do all the great things that you do. Without proper care and maintenance of your body, you will not have the resources to deliver the goods. So, take some time out of every day for the care and nurturing of your physical temple.
Composite Hybrid Approach to a Better Life
You’re going to have to mix up your daily routine to come up with a composite hybrid approach to a better life that works for you. Your special mix of diet, exercise, relaxation, maintenance of a sound mind and heart is all up to you, and subject to change at any time.
Even so, keep in mind that neglecting yourself is unhealthy and will cost you big time in the long run.
10 Steps to a Better Life
Some of the components of your composite hybrid approach to a better life should include the following elements,Emotional Release
1 Emotional Release
You can’t be holding back and burying your feelings. You need to find ways to let it out and deal with your feelings or else they will eat away at you and make you subject to contracting a disease or declining faculties. Team up with someone you can trust with your innermost details, and/or write out your frustrations in a journal. Find your own way to get them outside of the hidden recesses of your mind, heart and body.
2 Get Comfortable in Your Skin
This is not a competition, of a race. The only person you are competing with is you. Take your eyes off of other people. Do not judge yourself or compare yourself to anyone else. This is about you, your own personal best. It’s not about anyone else. Be the best you can be and don’t fall prey to your own negative thoughts, don’t put yourself down, or be envious of anyone else. This life is not about them, it’s all you.
3 Joy Break
Take some time out each day to do something you love, even if it’s just for a few minutes. You are your own supporter, no one knows you better than you, and you should be the first to see that you are spending some time “in the zone,” whatever that means to you. You deserve this; especially if the bulk of your day (or life) is spent in service to others. Find something you enjoy, and take a joy break at some point in your day.
4 Yuk It Up
Find some humor throughout your day. Put a smile on your face (even if you don’t feel like it). The more you smile, the happier you will be. When things go awry, don’t get down, get up. Find the humor in the faux pas and give it a giggle, if not a full-on belly laugh. This will keep you on the bright side of life.
5 Look on the Bright Side of Life
Work on maintaining a positive outlook on life and all things. It’s easy, when you’re juggling a variety of tasks, and seeing something not going as you planned in your work, or even in the world, to start throwing stones and getting upset. These feelings of angst are not healthy or supportive of your improved higher lifestyle of increased productivity and performance. Being positive, maintaining a positive perspective and remaining in a positive vibration builds your immune system and creates new neural pathways in your brain increasing creativity and lightning-fast problem-solving abilities.
6 Make Time to Grow
Cut out some time from your day to nurture your own self-growth. You can listen to a challenging or uplifting podcast, read a chapter in a book, take a jaunt to the gym, practice yoga, meditate or spend time in prayer. Whatever resonates with you, take a little time each day to promote your own personal growth.
7 Diet and Exercise
It’s the dreaded D&E (believe me, I know. I wrote the book on Don’t Diet or Exercise, literally). But if you want to live a good life in service to others, you need the energy and raw materials it takes to have the vitality to be able to have the energy to “be there” when others might have thrown in the towel. So, take some time to exercise (it doesn’t have to look like exercise, you just have to move your body and breathe. You could do that dancing, taking the stairs, or briskly walking to and from the bathroom or parking lot). Eat more healthy food and take some vitamins and nutritional supplements.
8 Review Your Life
This is not a part of your daily routine but should be a routine which exists in the hybrid composite of your life. Taking the time to sit back and take a look at your life, where it’s been, where it’s leading you and what you’re doing on a daily basis is healthy. And it might alert you to the knowledge of the possibility that your life has gone astray, you have wandered off track, and the path you are on may not be able to get you to where you want to be. It might be time for a change.
9 Have a Goal
You get more out of life if you have a goal. In fact, the more goals you have, that you set and achieve, the greater fulfillment you will get out of life. How many goals? Mark Victor Hansen says, “You can never have too many goals” (and he should know, he has thousands of them). So, take some time and start thinking about the things in life you might like to accomplish, things of any size, small (easy to achieve) and large (more challenging) and set out to knock ‘em down, marking them off your list, one by one.
10 Make Adjustments Along the Way
I remember, in driving class, my driving instructor said, “Never hold the steering wheel in a death grip, pointed where you want to go. Keep it fluid, ever adjusting, loosely and comfortably moving you toward where you want to go.”
Whoa, who’d have ever known what a key to life that would end up being?
So, take Brian Johnson’s advice (no, not the lead singer for AC/DC, the driving instructor), don’t live your life in a death grip. Loosen up and keep it moving in the general direction you want to go, and make the journey as comfortable as possible, always making little adjustments along the way.