Originally published April 7, 2018 in the New Zealand Herald.
Personal development can seem like a daunting task when you think about all the improvements you want to make in every area of your life: health, money, career, relationships, education, family, travel/leisure, sports, spiritual growth and so on. So often it seems like you succeed in one area only to see another one neglected. It’s not that you’re not achieving successes, you may be wildly successful in one area and it just seems so hard to succeed across the board.
Wouldn’t it be incredible if you could simply do one thing to improve yourself and there was a ripple effect? Imagine improving one area of your life, and every other area of your life was improved as a result – kind of like the “all ships rise with the tide” phenomenon. I believe there IS such a thing, and I believe that one thing is physical fitness.
We often think of our personal fitness as being all about “workouts and nutrition” – but TRUE FITNESS is much more about PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT…
The benefits of physical fitness are many. It keeps your muscles and bones strong, controls your weight, disease proofs your body, improves your mood, improves brain function, helps you sleep better, boosts energy and improves your sex life.
That is because there are key personal development benefits in good physical fitness. Honing the mind, creating self-discipline, treating the body with respect and setting and achieving goals are all excellent attributes to cultivate.
The mental aspect is one of the key benefits of physical fitness. If you learn the principles of success in fitness you can use them in other areas of life. The attitude it takes to succeed is the same, whatever it is you are trying to achieve.
The physical body is an excellent place to learn and develop the principles of personal development. You can see it and measure it. Progress or lack of it is easily apparent.
So many people do not see results because they set weak goals with weak intentions and give up far too easily.
Somehow we have forgotten that our most important asset is our body and its health and wellness. We cannot reach any our goals, do our work or fulfill our mission and purpose in life if our body cannot support us.
There is no mystery as to what is required to succeed. Proper exercise supported by REAL food is what it takes over a long period of time. You WILL see results if you stick to it.
Once you learn to master the art of goal setting, hone your self-discipline along with developing higher motivation levels you will be able to set your mind to other life goals.
Martial arts are an excellent example of how the body can be used to learn and understand deeper spiritual and mystical aspects of oneself and of life in general.
The importance of physical fitness goes beyond mere physical benefits. The body and mind are deeply interconnected. The benefits of physical fitness are that it sets the tone of constant improvement in a very tangible manner and it has flow on effect throughout the rest of your life.
Improving health and fitness is the easiest one of those to control and it is the easiest one to gain mastery of. Developing your skills there is a good stepping stone to making more serious changes in other areas of your life. The mental transformation that must take place in sync with the physical changes is what makes this a fast path to life transformation.
You will not only be stronger and fitter, but calmer, happier and saner as well. Try it and see for yourself how well it works.
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