Given another is just year over I thought I would get philosophical so you think about your fitness a bit differently as a new year starts.
I was reading an article about Personal Mastery recently and I realized how similar the message was to personal fitness.
In reality, fitness is a requirement for personal mastery. How can you have personal mastery if you aren’t looking after your health and are fit enough to do the things you want to do in your life.
Many people think of fitness as something separate from their contribution to the world. A nice to have,’ but not really essential.
That might be the case when you are young, but the older you get, the more important fitness and health become. Mature (older) people with skills, experience and wisdom have the most to give back. How frustrating would it be if you had so much to give but couldn’t because your health and fitness let you down?
That’s why getting and staying fit is so important. Not so you can run around the block or ride your bike with your friends. But so you can continue to contribute to the world, what ever that means for you.
The article I referred to above talked about the importance of discipline.
It stated discipline stands alone as an absolute necessity for Personal Mastery. Without it, personal habits and outside influences control our daily lives. Disciplining ourselves to do the work of Personal Mastery is not the easiest thing to do and sometimes unpleasant. We choose to suffer the pain of discipline rather than the pain of regret. The pain of regret is nagging and ongoing. The pain of discipline subsides with persistence.’
If you replaced the words Personal Mastery with fitness the above statement still holds true.
It takes discipline to get and stay fit. You have to tolerate the discomfort of pushing yourself outside your comfort zone to get fitter. Being fit isn’t the easy option.
However, choosing to be fit and look after your health is much more satisfying than the feeling of regret. Imagine how you would feel if your health or fitness stopped you doing what is really important to you. It might not be stopping you now, but at some point it may well do.
So next time you are struggling to get out of bed or to put your running shoes on, think about how much worse it would feel if you didn’t have the choice and couldn’t do the other things in your life that you take for granted now.
This is so true – especially the part about ‘the pain of discipline subsides with persistence’ – one day you realise your bad old habits have gone and been replaced with positive news ones! Of course the only person who can do it is YOU; people can offer encouragement and support but only you can make the change – and that bald fact can be VERY frustrating when a loved one just keeps making excuses and chooses to stay fat and unfit …