Looking after yourself will require a composite hybrid approach to a better life, ensuring you have the resources to stay on top of your game.
Whether you’re a soccer mom, an emergency room nurse, a firefighter, a law enforcement officer, or the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, you should make time to look after yourself.
Think about it: yes, people depend on you to deliver the goods and look good while doing it, but what resources are you drawing upon? You are drawing water from your well.
What if your health 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 perform at your best. So, take some time out of every day to care for and nurture your physical temple.
Composite Hybrid Approach to a Better Life
You’ll need to adjust your daily routine to develop a composite hybrid approach that works for you, ultimately leading to a better life. Your unique mix of diet, exercise, relaxation, and maintaining a sound mind and heart is all up to you and subject to change at any time.
Even so, remember that neglecting yourself is unhealthy and will ultimately come at a high cost 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 hold back and bury your feelings. You need to find ways to let it out and deal with your emotions, 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 way to bring them out 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 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 let negative thoughts hold you back; avoid putting yourself down or being envious of others. This life is not about them; it’s all about 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 your life—is spent serving 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 aspects of it. 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 and do not support your improved lifestyle, characterized by increased productivity and performance. Being optimistic, maintaining a positive perspective, and staying in a positive vibration helps build your immune system and create new neural pathways in your brain, thereby increasing creativity and enhancing your ability to solve problems quickly.
6 Make Time to Grow
You can just cut out some time from your day to nurture your 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 few minutes each day to nurture 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). However, if you want to live a fulfilling life in service to others, you need the energy and raw materials it takes to maintain the vitality to be present when others might have given up. So, take some time to exercise (it doesn’t have to look like exercise; you have to move your body and breathe). You can do that by 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 part of your daily routine, but it should be a routine that exists in the hybrid composite of your life. Taking the time to sit back and reflect on your life —where it has been, where it’s leading you, and what you’re doing daily — is healthy. It may alert you to the possibility that your life has gone astray, that you have wandered off track, and that the path you are on may not lead 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. The more goals you set and achieve, the greater fulfillment you will experience in life. How many goals? Mark Victor Hansen says, “You can never have too many goals” (and he should know, having thousands of them himself). Take some time to think about the things in life you’d like to accomplish, whether small and easy to achieve or large and more challenging. Set out to knock them down, marking them off your list one by one.
10 Make Adjustments Along the Way
I recall my driving instructor saying, in driving class, “Never hold the steering wheel in a death grip, but point it where you want to go.” Keep it fluid, ever-adjusting, and move loosely and comfortably toward your desired destination.
Whoa, who’d have ever known what a key to life that would end up being?
So, take Brian Johnson’s advice (not the lead singer of AC/DC, but the driving instructor), and don’t live your life in a death grip. Loosen up and keep moving in the general direction you want to go, making the journey as comfortable as possible by always making minor adjustments along the way.