The Questions We Can’t Ignore
"Am I living my best life?" "What brings me happiness and fulfillment?"
These existential questions are at the heart of the human experience. Over the years, I've wrestled with these nagging questions a lot. I’ve pursued various “silver bullet” answers like money, job titles, or notoriety. However, I found that these singular pursuits often fell short of delivering the fulfillment and sense of purpose I craved.
Instead, through the highs and lows of my life and career, I realized that my happiness was closely tied to the good habits I maintained across five key areas of my life:
Physical Health
Mental Health
Emotional Health
Financial Health
Spiritual Health
My eureka moment came when I started viewing each of these areas through the lens of 'health' and as distinct facets of overall health. The concept of being "healthy" transcends beyond physical workouts or nutritious meals. It encompasses holistic habits and balanced pursuits, all contributing to a vibrant and fulfilling life.
For me, Healthy = Happy. This newfound framework has shed light on the root cause of any failures or dissatisfaction I experience, and provides a clear pathway for necessary life improvements.
Why this, why now
I’ve felt an increasingly strong pull to share this health and happiness framework for some time now. I find myself talking about it often in my conversations with colleagues, friends, and family and I want to share what I’m learning with even more people.
I can't claim life is necessarily harder now than in the past, but in our interconnected digital age, it's easy to feel isolated, overwhelmed, inadequate, or depressed. We often see a distorted reflection of our lives contrasted against the carefully curated images others project.
The framework of the 5 facets of health can be a tool for self reflection and goal setting and can be an anchor to what is real and important in our lives.
The Community We're Building
My daily content consumption typically revolves around these five facets of health. My goal is to create a community where we can learn, grow, and support each other in being healthy and happy. We are, after all, an average of the people we interact with most. Consider this newsletter as my offering to a community of like-minded individuals. I invite you to engage with me and comment on what helps you feel more healthy and happy in these areas.
What to Expect
Every Thursday, expect a post from me in your inbox. Each post will include a unique idea or resource I've come across, a thought-provoking question, and a small, actionable step you can take towards enhancing your health and happiness in each of the five areas.
Let's embark on this journey towards a healthier, happier life together.
Week 1
Don’t try and implement everything in this section! The purpose of this content is to spark ideas for you. You’ll be most successful in building healthy habits if you pick 1 or 2 small things that feel most relevant to you in this moment and focus on those over the next week.
Physical Health
I recently finished reading the book Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity by Peter Attia. It provides a very compelling and sensible framework for increasing our lifespan and improving our health span. I highly recommend it and will likely quote from it often.
“I think of strength training as a form of retirement saving. Just as we want to retire with enough money saved up to sustain us for the rest of our lives, we want to reach an older age with enough of a “reserve” of muscle and bone density to protect us from injury and allow us to pursue the activities that we enjoy.” - Peter Attia
Action: Find a way to incorporate some strength training into your daily life. Keep it simple. It can be 10 body weight squats, swinging a kettle bell, or doing shoulder raises with a gallon milk.
Mental Health
I’ve long been obsessed with how to build mental toughness and resilience. Life will always throw its curveballs, but I believe we can train ourselves how to better deal with moments of stress and anxiety. One of my favorite quotes on this topic is from Will Smith:
“The keys to life are running and reading. When you're running, there's a little person that talks to you and says, "Oh I'm tired. My lung's about to pop. I'm so hurt. There's no way I can possibly continue." You want to quit. If you learn how to defeat that person when you're running, you will learn how to not quit when things get hard in your life. For reading: there have been gazillions of people that have lived before all of us. There's no new problem you could have… that someone hasn't already had and written about it in a book.” - Will Smith
Action: When you experience something hard this week and hear that voice in your head telling you to quit or avoid the discomfort, take a pause. Sit in the discomfort for a minute and commit to taking action in positive way that gets you closer to your goals. Seek out a book or article that could help you learn how to better handle your situation.
Emotional Health
I’m constantly working on being more present. I’m on my phone way too much and often miss out on opportunities to create moments of connection with others.
“The most dangerous distractions are the ones you love, but that don’t love you back.” -Warren Buffet
Action: Start tracking your screen time if you don’t already. Make a goal for how much you’d like to reduce it this next week. Share your goal with a friend or loved one and ask them to follow up with you.
Financial Health
I was talking with a couple of friends this week about what our financial goals are. We talked about the power that comes from having “enough”. Compared to many others, I’m not financially rich. But, I have “enough”. That mindset is incredibly liberating and can open all kinds of doors for you.
“Experience has taught us that material wants know no natural bounds, that they will expand without end unless we consciously restrain them. Capitalism rests precisely on this endless expansion of wants. That is why, for all its success, it remains so unloved. It has given us wealth beyond measure, but has taken away the chief benefit of wealth: the consciousness of having enough.”
― Robert Skidelsky & Edward Skidelsky, How Much Is Enough? Money and the Good Life
Action: Spend some time thinking about what “enough” means to you. Write down your thoughts and any ideas you have for how you can operate from that mindset more often.
Spiritual Health
There are so many ways to work on our spiritual health. For some, it is through organized religion. For others, it’s being in nature or through meditation. Regardless of what works for you, it’s so important to find time to connect with a higher power and feel a sense of purpose.
“It isn’t until you come to a spiritual understanding of who you are – not necessarily a religious feeling, but deep down, the spirit within – that you can begin to take control.” – Oprah Winfrey
Action: Spend 60 seconds each day this week doing nothing but closing your eyes, breathing slowly and deeply, and feeling grateful for your body and your life.