Take Care of Yourself

It is so easy to get wrapped around the hustle and bustle of the day. We get up, we go to work, we come home, spend some time with our loved ones and we go to bed, 0nly to do it all over again.

Then, out-of-the-blue, we get blindsided by something we didn't expect. Now the smooth-running machine is out of sync and everything gets pushed around to handle this unexpected event.

Does this scenario sound familiar?

Balance is the key to living a peaceful and happy life. Eat too much and gain weight. Work too much and relationships with family and friends is stressed, that work out routine gets put on hold, and we begin eating on-the-run.

Slow down!

Examine all of the things in your life and truly understand what you really want. Once you've decided what critical things in your life have to happen, sit down (perhaps on a Sunday) and spend a good hour writing down those things you could do in the upcoming week to move forward on each of these critical things.

Dr. Steven Covey in both his books The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People and the 8th Habit, discusses how this process works. If you haven't read his books, I can't recommend them enough. If you have a long commute in the morning, he also offers his books in CD format. You can find them on Google, Barnes&Noble, or any reputable book store.

These books suggest that there are four key areas in our lives that we should focus and balance across our week. They are the physical, the mental, the social and spiritual quadrants or areas. Dr. Covey calls these physical intelligence (PQ), mental intelligence (IQ), social intelligence (EQ) and spiritual intelligence (SQ). By balancing our attention on these four areas, adding just a little bit of proficiency to each one weekly, great gains can be made in a few months.

Think about this for a moment. If you practiced your piano 30 minutes a day, you would have practiced 183 hours! Not bad when you consider that it only takes 30 minutes a day. The key is to remember how important it is to focus on key areas in your life and do "little" things consistently.

Now to the original topic of this blog entry. Taking care of yourself means prioritizing what's important to you and chipping away at them a little at a time. We don't neglect other areas for one or another area, we chip away at all of them.

Examples:

Physical (walk each day for 30 minutes)
Social (play ball with the kids)
Mental (read one chapter a week from a book)
Spiritual (whatever your religious belief requires)

Simple, small things done consistently across all of these areas will produce wondrous results. Take care of yourself. If you do, you'll be able to take care of others, and have plenty of time in your schedule, when the unexpected comes your way.

Dave