A blueprint for healthy living

Fitness and Wellbeing
Paul O'Brien

Over the past 25 years, I’ve had the good fortune to have been exposed to the works and lives of many successful people in all walks of life. As a teenager, I was introduced to such famous works as ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’, ‘Think and Grow Rich’ and many more. These works have helped shaped my philosophy about what it takes to live well.
Living well and healthy living are not mutually exclusive. Healthy living, taking care of your health and fitness, lays a foundation from which to live well. Living well means achieving balance and prosper in the important domains of life – physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and relational. Think of it as a blueprint for successful living.
By my thinking, it’s hard to excel in other areas of your life if you neglect your health and fitness. A healthy body informs a healthy life.

Blueprint design
What do the successful people I’ve studied do to achieve their success? Well, there are as many opinions out there as there are people who share them. Ultimately, you will need to begin by defining what success means to you. What exactly does living well mean to you?
What follows is my take on living well, trying to achieve balance and prosperity in each of the aforementioned domains. I’ve taken this from my own practices and what has worked with clients in my work as a personal trainer and life coach. It may help get you out of the starting blocks.

Develop routines
Any success you want to achieve needs a solid base. This can be laid with a short morning routine that sets you up for a successful day. For example, I have a 30- to 45-minute morning routine in which I read some inspiring literature, meditate, complete a short visualisation and focus on my goals. I also do some form of exercise, some breathing work and take a cold shower.
The routine helps me frame my day with the right attitude and better manage challenges. If you don’t have 30-45 minutes, start with just ten minutes and develop a short routine.
The key is to do it every day.

Move daily
Don’t think about ‘taking exercise’. Stop compartmentalising what your body needs and wants to do naturally – that is, to move. Why not approach it as an exploration? Begin today to explore what your body is capable of and then try and get a little better every day. Play, walk, swim, hang out with the kids, jump on the trampoline, splash in the sea, climb trees or do anything else that takes your fancy. Just do it with attention on how your body is responding, and you’ll be able to see the little changes happening.

Share
A characteristic of our individualistic society is that we tend to hold onto things. We do this for protection and out of fear. You can turn this around by obeying the age-old advice, ‘If you want to receive, give’.
I’m not talking about material things necessarily, but more those things that are most precious – give of your time, your energy, your knowledge and your smile. Look for one opportunity every day to give something out to someone you think may need it.

Set goals
Regular readers of this column will recognise this one. Goals are essential if you want success in your life. Yet less than 3 percent of people regularly set them.
Here’s the secret formula to achieving any goal. Set it. Action it daily. Review it weekly. It’s that simple. Follow this three-step process and watch your life transform.

Associate
If you want to be surrounded by success and live well, you must surround yourself with those you want the same thing.
If there are people in your life who don’t support what you want to do, spend your time with those who do. This might sound harsh, but you must be the curator of your own success environment.

> Paul O’Brien is a certified personal trainer with the American Council on Exercise since 2007 and a qualified Life, Health & Nutrition Coach. He is co-owner of Republic of Fitness in Westport. He can be contacted on 086 1674515 or rofstudio@gmail.com.