Mindset for Leading a Healthy Lifestyle – Life Does Not Give a Damn, So Prepare and Plan

Our overall well-being is defined by doing those simple, trivial and unnoticeable activities that we do daily. These habits are the ones that add up to help us in critical moments. The most beneficial things are simple and easy to do in life. But they are also easy to quit because they generally do not give immediate rewards.
There is no magic pill or book or diet or exercise or a 30 day program for a healthy and happy life. We must not be fall by those cunning marketing techniques which are designed to entice our primitive brain’s affinity towards shortcuts and convenience. Nothing works unless we work and keep working. Sometimes people fail to reach goals because they just do not want them strong enough. It is not because they could not do it, but they don’t want to do it.
We must pursue our resolutions with focus and a clear purpose. We must not keep entertainment and convenience as top priorities while we have a mission at hand. Of course enjoying the process is essential and remembering that it’s absolutely fine to have some lows during the course keeps us on track.
Living a healthy life comes with developing certain good habits now and giving up on certain habits that are not in our best interest. When you lack discipline to focus on the values of life like health, wealth, relationships and our personal passions, you will unconsciously fill the day with trivial stuff. You will fill in the gap with all the insignificant activities to justify your incapacity to do the things that matter. If we do not create unbreakable standards for ourselves, our day would be hijacked by the trivial tasks and we would be running around satisfying other’s needs instead of doing things that gives us meaning.
If we are unfocussed, we unconsciously spend more time on secondary activities which could be done later or delegated to others or even completely ignored. And that’s how we waste a minute then an hour and then a day without following up on our commitments.
We spend too much time doing secondary and unimportant things in life which results in less or no time for priorities in life like health, wellbeing, relationships, self -development, pursuing passions etc.
Life does not stop throwing challenges at us because we have good intentions. Every day has a different set of challenges. Try to overcome the challenges that show up unexpectedly rather than just getting paralyzed by them.
We need to remember that life has its own plans. People around us will have their own expectations and untimely events keep happening in our lives. Our goal must not be impacted by the external circumstances. We can never stand by your resolution if it is dependent anything that is outside of us.
There is never a perfect day to start anything in life because there is no such perfect day. We need to make it happen despite the distractions.
Having a healthy life and overall well-being, quality relationships, financial stability, to gain and keep respect in a community requires continuous attention to details. There is no end to leading a healthy lifestyle.
Our overall health needs daily attendance and we need to learn to fall in love with the process. It is not like we give everything for a day or week and take the benefits for ever. We need to go through the grind daily to have a harmonious life.
Every person on this earth will have moments in life that shakes them up and become turning points in their lives. Many people’s lives take complete negative U turn after those events and only few people seem to trudge their way back to normalcy.
Resolutions are not meant to be made once in an year. Any resolution that is made today must again be made tomorrow.—Albert Gray. Our decisions and commitments need constant nourishment every single day or else we go off-track in no time. Success is never owned, it is only rented—and the rent is due every day.
Life has ups and downs, tragedies and triumphs, sad and happy moments, life is one roller coaster ride. Preparation and planning is important to deal with unlikely circumstance. It is better to be prepared and not have an opportunity then to be unprepared and have an opportunity. Failing to prepare is preparing to fail.
One of the common reasons for us to waste time is to not have specific tasks or routine planned for any given day. Once you are prepared and have a schedule, you are more likely to spend time in doing the things that serves you best, rather than wasting time in thinking what to do next.
There will be certain phases in our lives where we go through traumatic experiences. Prepare for such scenarios so that you can give everything when the situation demands.
When you say you don’t have time for self-development and self-maintenance, just be critical and assess if you are indulging in activities that are not a priority (important) and not urgent. Remember that anything that you do to improve your quality of life is of highest priority. Because when you do activities that keeps you in a healthy physical and mental state, you would be in a position to give high performance in any area of your life.
If we don’t take the effort to plan or imagine how our ideal day or week must look like, then we may never have a day that we can look forward to with excitement. If we do not have an agenda for our day, then we would run according to other’s expectations and allow life to take its own course. If we do not have a program for ourselves, we would be programmed by external factors unconsciously.
It is inevitable to face setbacks when we venture out on achieving something. Have a recovery plan and some fallback options when you hit a roadblock. If we do not plan to handle failures, we tend to get upset and completely disregard the journey itself. Preparing in advance will help us get back on track when we are hit by uncontrollable circumstance.

*Article inspired by book “Take the Stairs: 7 Steps to Achieving True Success”

Interesting articles in this series :

~Praveen Jada

*Do read the Disclaimer