Personal Health: Investing in Your Best Asset
Anyone who has been on an airplane has heard the flight attendant's admonishment: In case of an emergency, remember to ensure your own oxygen mask is securely in place before trying to help anyone else. It is an important life lesson as well. Only when we have taken steps to assure that we are in our best health, can we offer our best efforts to our work and to others around us.
You are your best asset. If you are tired, stressed, and physically worn out, how can you expect to fully exploit your talents, skills, and abilities to achieve success? Consider yourself as you would any other asset that must be maintained and kept at optimal performance.
This means that it's not enough to just schedule a spa appointment once a year. Effort must be made to include self help as part of every day. Self deprivation is denigration. You become devalued when you don't honor yourself with proper self care.
And self care means more than just ensuring physical well-being.
The Dimensions of Self. We aren't just machines able to do repetitive tasks endlessly and flawlessly. We have dimensions to ourselves that must get attention, or they start to break down. There are many ways to consider these aspects of self, but they include the following:
- Physical. When we take time to invest in Physical Well-being, including exercise, sleep and healthy eating, our bodies reward us with strength and vitality to achieve great things.
- Emotional. When we maintain Emotional Strength, we can better cope with the stresses that life brings our way.
- Mental. When we take steps to sharpen our Mental Acumen, we stay poised to seize opportunities and resolve challenges before us.
- Spiritual. Tending to our need for Spiritual Enrichment involves honoring our higher selves and the larger purpose we aim to serve.
Connecting Self. Beyond the dimensions of ourselves, are endless possibilities to connect to others, to our work and our passions, and to our definition of abundance and wealth.
- Personal Relationships. Establishing and maintaining Personal Connections with family, friends, and others in our social network has the added benefit of promoting emotional health and nourishing our spirit
- Relationship to Work. Doing what we love, and always striving to improve what we do, helps assure Vocational Satisfaction
- Relationship to Wealth. Confronting and tending to financial matters helps us relax into a sense of Financial Security.
Historically, the business culture has tended to value and reward those (mostly men) who spend their lives focusing on only the mental sides of themselves and their connections to work and money. Those individuals typically end up with little or no family life, emotionally shut down and spiritually unfulfilled.
This article on the Four Pillars of Vitality discusses how to work, study, rest, and play in meaningful and balanced ways. It offers concrete examples of ways to achieve authentic balance.
