As I have gained insight into me, I have become acutely aware that my mental status affects me physically. (Stress and grief have an outward appearance). Likewise, how I feel physically can affect my overall attitude. When my relationship with God and family is funky, my interactions with the world is funky. When the world treats me badly, my reaction to the treatment spills over into my home life and other relationships. It is all intertwined, so I have been looking for some concrete way to put it all in perspective.
We spend millions of dollars a year on cosmetics and surgery and spa treatments trying to erase the effects of lack of sleep, a poor diet, and the consumption of too little water, etc. How awesome it would be if my lack of sleep had little to no effect on how I looked or performed my responsibilities in a given situation. The same is true with diet or consumption of water. That being said, life just doesn’t work that way.
At work recently, our customers were segmented into 3 buckets - educate, establish and expand – 3 “E”. It dawned on me that when I am intentional about living a well-balanced life and pushing to be the better ME, this segmentation strategy (compartmentalizing) ought to work. There ought to always be something in my life that drives me to seek more education/learning (to know more so I can do more or do better). I recently returned to swimming lessons. Once I become more educated and begin to apply the learnings regularly, the routine feeds my established segment. In the established space, I am accustomed to doing something and I tweak for improvement. When maximum benefit is secured, these routines move to the expand segment. This is the comfortable place and often dangerous... the practice is a given and to keep it fresh and growing, variety is needed. Why? Perfected practices (they are easy and an accepted way of life for me) need to be expanded to continue to produce more benefit. So, do you see how each segment feeds the other? If one area is deficient on the journey than all areas have the potential to suffer.
The first two segments were easy for me to grasp but I wrestled with the expanding a bit. And then I ran across this quote ... “when something becomes easy, we are probably no longer in the game.” One need look no farther than consistent exercise. If an exercise routine becomes easy … meaning you can accomplish it without breaking mental and/or physical sweat, your body is telling you “game over for this level, I (meaning the body) know this level, I have compensated for the output needed and the benefit has been maximized.” All that is happening at this point is maintenance. At its best maintenance implies a holding pattern/no improvement and at worse, a loss of momentum/diminishing return. Maintenance for too long is not a good thing.
PRACTICE: Identify an area of your life where an established practice could be grown quickly to the expand segment. Educate yourself around ways to make it happen.
Ecclesiastes 10:18
PONDER THIS THOUGHT - My knowledge about the interconnectedness of my life provides fuel for continued growth.
Comentários