Well it’s that time of the year again, and that means most of us have new goals. Beginners and personal growth heads alike are focused to tackle new endeavors over the next twelve months. If you’re one of them here is an unsolicited recommendation to keep in mind as you get cracking on it. When choosing a resolution, a good place to start is to improve health, the absence of good health will not only make our efforts fundamentally difficult but also counterintuitive.
First, let’s define health. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines health as the balance of mental, physical and social health, also known as the health triangle. Having a good balance in all three areas is essential to living a healthy lifestyle. Now let’s take a closer look at the health triangle.
On this model, the 3 sides represent a person’s Physical, Social and Mental health. Because a triangle has 3 identical sides, this model explains the significance of each aspect to be equal. In fact, devoting more attention to one particular side, while neglecting the other, can lead to imbalances in life.
The 3 Sides of your triangle
Physical health, deals with your body’s ability to function normally. It comprises:
– Your Diet and Nutrition
– Physical activity
– Sleeping habits
– Physical and Oral hygiene.
Mental health, focuses on mind, intellect, thoughts, feelings and emotions. It is concerned with things like:
– Stress, anxiety, anger
– Behavior, self-acceptance, confidence, awareness
– Developing new skills and knowledge
Social health, encompasses our relationship with others like, family, friends, peers and or co-workers. This aspect involves:
– Communication with others
– Care and compassion for others
– The ability to seek and lend support
– Creating, managing and maintaining relationships
All three sides of the health triangle are interlinked and dependent on each other If one is out of balance the other two will also be affected. When a triangle is imbalanced the structure becomes unstable.
To learn the structure of your triangle, you can somehow gauge how much attention is dedicated towards a certain aspect and measure the level of that side.
For a person who spends a lot of time in the gym, eats healthy and is very studious, this amounts for a high dedication towards the physical and mental aspect of his triangle, but since he spends a lot of time in the gym and is always studying this person then neglects socializing, spending time and party with his friends and peers, which then affects the social aspect of his triangle. His triangle now looks like this:
The above example simplifies what I have gone through the years.
I have always struggled to keep my triangle stable because of certain choices. In fact, the health triangle somehow echoes the principle of the burner theory, but in a much complex philosophy I guess.
I have never been naïve about the health triangle, I always knew my triangle was never perfect and I’m pretty sure that I’m not the only one going through this and that indirectly there are people suffering because we can’t keep our triangles healthy.
In my experiences I almost always neglect the social aspect of my triangle, not because I don’t care but because of the choices I have made and certain things I wanted to achieve, at some point in my life I thought that the only thing that would make me healthy was to focus on nutrition, diet and exercise which then led me to abandon and neglect most of the relationships I have created. To cut it short I may have been physically and mentally healthy but my social life was suffering. I’m still trying to get better at it.
However, if in College for some reason I never started lifting weights, martial arts or was never concerned about nutrition, I would have headed in a different direction. If I went towards the path of a highly social individual who stays out partying all night, I wouldn’t have gotten good sleep, If I was drinking and smoking my physical health would have suffered. Say I took drugs while I’m at it who knows what my mental health would look like nowadays.
Taking care of our triangles
Asses yourself, think about how you can improve and after identifying where you are lacking from the health triangle, focus on the area which needs the most improvement.
Here are some unsolicited advice for you, to help you out with whatever you are trying to achieve for the next 12 months, like I said I believe that fundamentally health should be a priority because it will determine how far you can go with life, if your unhealthy your journey will be much more difficult than you expect.
Two things though.
1. Have a solid and organized plan for a Healthy Change. “A goal without a Plan is just a dream” – Brian Tracy
2. Be aware that progress is not linear, you will sometimes experience setbacks but it’s all part of the game, stay with it, you can do it.
Physical health resolutions: There are tons of information everywhere with regards to physical health, but essentially I think here is a good place to start.
– Be Active
– Eat clean, hydrate
– Be hygienic
– Sleep
Mental health resolutions: I admit that I only learned the importance of this aspect about 3-5 years ago and I have been good at identifying and determining necessary steps for myself to be healthy at this aspect, here are some that helped me:
-Engaging in hobbies that you enjoy
-Exploring your creativity like music, art or writing
–Build resilience and toughness
Social health resolution: I am still finding ways to get better at this aspect, but what I’m learning as I go along is that everything has a tradeoff and that balance is hard to find, you must really identify what and who you treasure in this matter, there are a lot of choices to be made however there is no wrong answer, only new pages to unfold.
– Checking in on friends and family
-Seeking mentorship
-Volunteering
-Joining clubs or bonding over common interest
Ultimately the best resolutions are the ones that will make us better than our past selves and every day that passes you are further and further away from your starting point. You are at your youngest today start killing it and hopefully while doing it you inspire others to do better as well. I’ll be there with you, this year will be effin awesome.
XERGIUS 