I love the idea of ‘skills’ and of all the skills to learn, how to live a fit and healthy lifestyle sits among the most important. It literally affects every aspect of your life and plays a huge role in whether or not you enjoy yours or not. Of course there are other factors but your health and fitness situation is a titan among them.
You might be thinking that living a healthy and active lifestyle isn’t a skill.
Wrestling is a skill. No doubt about it. Playing the piano is a skill. No doubt there. Without a doubt, painting is a skill . How about card magic? Of course thats a skill.
Living a healthy and fit lifestyle? Most people would say that’s not really skill and I would completely disagree with them.
Here’s why.
One definition of a skill is the ability to do something well. When applied to your health, fitness and overall quality of life, you definitely want to be doing it well. Look at those who don’t do it well and you see what it can be like when you lack this skill.
The thing about skills is that that you aren’t born with them. You need to get educated about them, work at them and give them time. They are earned, not gifted and this is true in every situation where a high level of skill is evident. There are no exceptions.
Those who exceed at a particular skill, whether it’s wrestling, playing the piano, card magic or living a healthy lifestyle, have all educated themselves about their chosen skill, put in the time and worked at developing them.
Agreed?
And I suppose we could break it down even further and say that a fit and healthy lifestyle is a combination of many smaller skills that need to be developed in order to enjoy the larger benefit of being fit and healthy.
So what are the skills of living a fit and healthy lifestyle? Well that depends on the person but here are a few examples:
- The skill of learning how to cook
- The skill of learning how to exercise consistently
- The skill of developing new habits
- The skills of having an open mind to try a different approach
- The skill of taking personal responsibility for your actions
- The skill of watching less tv and reading more
- The skill of changing your sleep patterns from 2am to 10.30pm
- The skill of learning how to go food shopping
- The skill of setting realistic goals instead of overhauling everything in one week
- The skill of being coachable when you ask someone for advice
Hundreds more we could add but I think you get the point.
Our most successful clients understand that these are skills that they may not yet possess and therefore must commit learning. And because they are skills they are going to take a bit of time and effort to get past the initial learning curve until they eventually become habits that work on auto-pilot. They cannot be rushed through i9n a day or 2. They can take anywhere from 2 weeks to several months to become part of their character and start to have a positive impact on their life.
If you take on board this concept of getting skilful at health and fitness, and I hope you do, here are a few ways I get educated on the skills Ineed to learn, which are many.
- Blogs
- Podcasts
- Youtube
- Hiring a coach or mentor- one of the most powerful for me
- Seminars
- Workshops
- Conventions
- Books
- Audio-books
- Advice from people who have done what you are looking to do
What else can you add to this list if you wanted to?
Golden nugget of wisdom: If you lack a skill that is affecting the quality of life that you would like, the key is to immerse yourself in learning that skill and then taking action on the information you learn. So simple but so powerful.
I heard a great quote from Jim Rohn recently “The things that are easy to do are also easy not to do.’ Thats a powerful concept. Learning skills that will massively improve your quality of life and taking action on them is easy. Not learning them or learning them but not taking action is also easy.
And the great news is that it’s your choice!
Have a great day.
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