it’s 4:11 am and it’s impossible to fall back asleep. Your mind is preoccupied. You think that you need to quit your job before getting fired. Your boss knows that you are not passionate about it and that your dream is to start your own business. But you haven’t saved enough money for that so you are not ready yet. It’s now 5am and your mind is still racing. You had set up the alarm for 5:30am to go to the gym before work but you are now feeling too tired to get out of bed. All this worrying is draining your motivation to get active and to lose the extra 15pound that you have accumulated in the past months. You are in a vicious circle. Your mind is draining your physical energy and your body is not active enough to gift you mental clarity.
This is a very typical scenario that all of us have experienced at some time or another. Financial worries can have the most detrimental effect on our ability to lead a healthy lifestyle. There are several reasons why this happens. The first one is that our brain is a muscle that can drain a lot of energy. So when we worry too much, we are depleting our body from energy. Secondly, unwanted thoughts are distracting, and they make it harder to concentrate and focus on physical activities that require at certain level of intensity. Finally, having financial worries creates anxiety and even guilt. We may even believe that we can’t afford to spend time exercising and that instead we should be working on resolving our financial situation. In other words, most people find it very difficult to achieve an optimum healthy lifestyle when facing significant financial worries. For that reason, it is important to put together a strategy to minimize financial stress in order to maximize our ability to achieve top physical health.
I believe that in order to be in great physical shape, we need to have a financial plan. We need to be aware of our financial priorities in order to have the mental clarity needed for optimum physical energy. My conviction is that our mind is always navigating somewhere along the health and wealth continuum depending on our situation. Ultimately the goal is to reach a balance where we can feel financially secure and be in good health, in order to truly appreciate life by doing the things we care the most about. It’s possible but it takes meticulous planning and some patience.
Author : Stefan Saldivia