The wheel of life goes round and round. How smooth is your wheel and how close to the edge are you?

Health and Fitness is the stand out priority no matter how wonky your wheel might look. Literally everything hinges on it. Let’s take a look and put that little assertion to the test.

Career and Work. I hear this one a A LOT! “I have no time for exercise because I am working so hard to forward my career and build a future for my family, so my job is my main focus for now. When I get on top of it, then I will spend more time with my family and then get to looking after myself”. How much time do you think you have in this life? It is a no brainer that you will perform better when you are healthy and fit and your family will want to spend time with you when you have more energy to give. Cart before the horse and all that! Also, let’s get one thing straight. No one ever said on their death bed, ‘I wish I spent more time at work’. So if your career and work are getting on top of you, and you will know this by the stress you feel, carve out some ‘me’ time now, because the investment pays dividends, every time, even if you think it won’t. Trust me, I am a personal trainer.

“Me” time, by the way, is not going to the pub and downing six schooners at lunch. (I worked in a fitness centre in London where the boys did this after a game of squash and went back to work….in finance. I kid you not!). Drinking beer with your mates may be ‘you’ time but there are consequences to other parts of the wheel and definitely no health and fitness benefits to that little ritual even if you do hit a little ball around first.

Get out of bed and simply go for a walk. No exercise gear required. Just walk. Slow down the mind, breathe and then put one foot in front of the other and get some time out. It is amazing how movement can be a medicine in and of itself. You don’t have to pound the boxing bag, red zone your heart rate and sweat up a storm to get the benefit. It is true though that for the right person, expending the later kind of energy out will be a better move then a leisurely walk. You know who you are!

Choose your poison when it comes to exercise but know that whatever it is you do, being more active will be time well spent for almost every other part of the wheel you can think of.

Let’s look at some other parts of the wheel and see how health and fitness interacts.

Fun and Recreation. You can make your health and fitness routine very much a part of this segment of the wheel. In fact I think you should. When you do exercise that is fun, you are way more likely to keep doing it. Think how much more willing you are to play fun games where the exercise is kind of incidental compared to the thought of pounding out 400m interval runs? The more you can blend the segments of the wheel together seamlessly and not compartmentalise, the more your life will flow.

Now, imagine if you could combine Family and Friends, Health and Fitness AND Fun and Recreation. It is not too hard to see how playing a game of volleyball on the beach could take care of all these categories and maybe a couple more, now I think about it.

Depending on which Wheel of Life you are looking at, I believe you could get Personal Growth (another segment from most of the wheels I researched) from an activity such as learning a martial art with your son or daughter. Think how much fun it is to pretend to be Bruce Lee too whilst you practice your kata on the beach. And then you can check off Physical Environment! Many birds. One stone.

What else is left on the wheel? Some may say Finance (which admittedly could be seen as different to Career with which it is sometimes combined) and again I hear the argument that nothing happens without money, so I have to make this the number one priority and to hell with the run! Well you know what? Being healthy and fit will make your brain better [insert here copious gold standard peer review papers strongly suggesting same] so you can make better financial decisions.

So BOOM, now tell me which part of the wheel needs your attention the most? I figure that health and fitness is actually not even on the wheel but the engine that drives it.

Arrogant personal trainers!

Anthony Gillespie
B Sp Sc, B Sc. psych (HONS)

P (07) 3854 0386 M 0416116682
49 Allison St
Bowen Hills 4006
bestpracticept.com.au