Law Career Challenge #19: Maintain Good Physical and Mental Health
To achieve your career goals, you will need to keep yourself in good physical and mental shape.
This is fitness in the most literal sense.
You want to maintain sound health so you can best enjoy the fruits of your hard labor, and so you will be better able to withstand the obstacles life in the law will surely throw your way.
The challenge is to practice healthy thoughts, actions and habits on a daily basis.
Make a Self-Assessment
Step one is to stop and take a personal inventory of your physical and mental condition. Make an honest assessment of your overall health.
You can start with vital signs. How’s your weight? Has it been fluctuating, and if so, why? How about blood pressure, muscle strength, stamina?
What about the old brain? Are you sharp and alert or stressed, with headaches?
Spend some time examining yourself as if you were an interested onlooker: wandering outside your body, taking notes. Obviously if you see something wrong, consult a professional immediately.
But a patient, honest self-assessment of our health can reveal little tendencies that we can easily correct before they grow into big problems.
Keep the Wheel Rolling
Here’s an easy way to remember to keep your life in proper balance. Take a pen and a blank sheet of paper. Draw a circle. Draw two intersecting lines so the circle is divided into four equal pie wedges.
In one wedge write “Mental,” in another “Physical,” and in the other two “Emotional” and “Spiritual.”
Make a goal of creating space in each quadrant daily. As long as all four quadrants are well-nourished and healthy, your wheel will roll along just fine. But if one begins to atrophy or goes flat, the ride can get bumpy indeed.
Five Training Tips
- Keep a sharp look-out. Be aware of subtle changes in your mood or behavior. Unhealthy cycles can set in before you know it. Strive for a regular, poised lifestyle.
- When you leave the office, be sure to leave work behind. Go to the gym or go for a walk. Play with the kids or joke with your spouse. Whatever you do, don’t drag work into it. Be fully present when you are at home and enjoying recreational time.
- Post the wheel where you can see it every day. Try to spend at least a little time each day doing something to nourish each of your four areas of need: Mental, Physical, Emotional and Spiritual.
- Get an accountability partner. Ask a friend to team up and improve health. It’s more fun to have someone to work with and hold your feet to the fire.
- Hear Buddha. To keep the body in good shape is our duty. Otherwise, we shall not be able to keep our minds strong and clear.
You can check out last week's challenge here.
