Why Your Physical Health Must Come First

I had this conversation with my personal trainer this week, explaining one of the primary reasons I am training every day.

If you don’t feel well physically, then all of the other areas of your life will suffer. This is why it is critical to put your physical health and well-being first.

• Physical Energy: If you don’t feel well, you will lack the energy to be your best self. Whether you are sick, tired and run down, injured, or simply out of shape, your physical being affects every other area of your life. You can lack the physical energy you need when you don’t get enough sleep or when you are simply dehydrated. Without the physical energy you need, you won’t be your best in any other area, even if you can show up and plow through.
• Attitudinal Fitness: When you don’t well physically, your attitude suffers. You don’t have the energy to deal with challenges, nor do you have the stamina to maintain a resourceful state. Feeling bad, regardless of whether it is a health issue or a lack of sleep makes it easy to be pessimistic, negative, and cynical. A positive, optimistic attitude is easier to maintain when you feel well. That starts with how your body feels.
• Mental Stamina: Thinking is hard work. Have you ever felt so poor that you couldn’t concentrate? Have you been ill, under the weather, or tired and had trouble dealing with some problem that should have been easy but for the fact that you felt bad. The better you feel physically, the more mental stamina you have to deal with big, challenging, strategic issues.
• Emotional Fitness: The root cause of a lot of people’s short tempers and foul attitudes stem from their feeling bad physically. Because they don’t really feel well, their emotional state can be terrible. Your bad mood can cause you to do and say things that damage important relationships. Your emotional fitness starts with your physical fitness.

It’s important to take care of your physical health. Your brain lives in your body, and if you don’t feel well, then your brain, your mind, and your emotions don’t work as well as they should.

If you want to produce the best results you are capable of, then you have to start with your physical health and well-being. Everything else depends on it.