Fitness, Attitude, and Life/Career Success - the Undeniable Connection
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Exercise Moves Mountains and You
Looking for a career boost? Better yet - looking for a life boost? Tap into the undeniable connections between fitness, attitude, life, and career success. Go-to people develop and maintain an UNCOMPROMISING ATTITUDE about consistent exercise. They schedule it, prioritize it, and look forward to it for its unbeatable physical & mental health benefits, career benefits, and the long list of connections between regular prioritized exercise, self-esteem, and curating a can-do, find-a-way mindset.
Exercise creates ENERGY and helps us manage stress, people, demands, deadlines, and sleep. For many, regular prioritized exercise serves as a CATALYST for professional and personal growth, for mental clarity, for pushing past limits, and for boosting confidence & mood.
Frame Fitness as Part of Work and Identity
Reframing regular exercise and fitness - not as something one does separate from their career or life - but as an integral part of one’s work and life is a cornerstone of my strategy, coaching, and consulting work. There is no line of work, career, or life circumstance that doesn’t benefit from the marked improvements to cognitive function, energy, focus, problem-solving, mood, sleep, and quality of life that comes with regular aerobic, strength, and flexibility training. In addition, there is no better prevention for neurodegenerative diseases or dementia than regular physical activity to the point of some rigor.
For these reasons, physical fitness is a prioritized pillar of my strategy and coaching. I engage with clients to view fitness and regular physical rigor as an essential part of their work, their mission, their lives and their daily/weekly routine. This shift in mindset has been a surprisingly enjoyable, game-changing, and incredibly life-enhancing asset for my clients over the years, regardless of age, income, gender, or ethnicity . When people shift to to regarding investment in fitness and self as indispensable, foundational, and for them, the transformation and growth that follow is often astounding.
Eat, Train, and Systemize
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Viewing regular exercise as part of our jobs and lives is game-changing, but what does it mean day to day, and week to seek? Making exercise part of identify means realizing and internalizing that fitness is key to a healthy body, to robust cognitive function, to creativity, and to intellectual development. If you want a leg up on creating and leading a robust, energy-filled life, you cannot leave health and wellness to anyone other than yourself. Whatever your circumstances and to the degree possible, take charge of your body. Take charge of your health. What to do? First and foremost, see yourself as an athlete, eat, and train.
Athletes don’t diet or exercise.
Athletes eat and train.
Eat and train is about focus, self-empowerment, taking charge, and shifting attitude.
Step one is eat. Food is pleasure and food is fuel. Be mindful about the quantity and quality of what you eat, and be mindful of when you eat. Take time and enjoy your food. Pay attention. Experiment with produce, nuts, seeds, healthy protein, herbs, the time of day you eat, and by what time you’ll stop eating for the day. Step two is train. Movement is life-giving. Movement matters, and movement to the point of rigor matters. Purposeful movement positively influences every area of our lives. Purposeful movement clears the mind, moves us forward, and fills the body with energy and optimism hours after the fact.
On a practical level, integrating movement and fitness into our lives in a systematic say means designating and protecting specific days and times for three types of activity: 1) aerobic training, 2) strength training, and 3) daily deep stretching. Aerobic fitness refers to the body’s ability to breath robustly and deeply, and to use oxygen efficiently. High levels of aerobic fitness are associated with virtually every positive physical and mental health outcome one can imagine. Strength training two to three times weekly translates into improved mental health, cognitive function, muscle mass, and range of motion. Daily deep stretching keeps muscles and bodies long, lean, and flexible. Stretching improves circulation, and helps maintain fluid gate and range of motion. Stretching offers fountain-of-youth benefits that warm and lengthen muscles while preventing injury.
Engagement, Commitment, & Friction Points
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The health, career, personal, and professional benefits of ongoing, purposeful exercise are clear, and the bottom line is that our health is our responsibility. Craft a weekly weight routine, train for a 5K, take up swimming, or join a climbing group. Try a few things, figure out what works, and remove all obstacles and friction points between you and engaging in purposeful rigorous movement three to five days a week. With your doctor’s ok, exercise to the point of aerobic rigor 3 to 4 times weekly, lift weights 2 to 3 times weekly, and stretch thoroughly and deeply every day. Go for a run, take vigorous walks with a friend, or move big-time in dance class. Stretch, challenge and exert the body. Invest in healthy joints, flexible muscles, and in systems, strength, peace and yourself by crafting and protecting a way to move with vigor on a regular basis.
INVEST IN YOURSELF by suiting up and showing up to work hard and enjoy movement three to five times a week. Stick with it and watch the benefits flow.