What is the Link Between Fitness, Life and Work Happiness?
Discipline is often the difference between personal, professional or physical greatness and mediocrity. Athletic fitness requires discipline of schedule, food intake and sleep. Professional success requires discipline of schedule, information intake and focus. Family happiness requires discipline of routine, unplanned playtime and communication. Creating happiness in these three key life areas takes lots of hard work (and no small number of failures), but I have found that when I strive for discipline and simplicity, happiness seems to follow.
To make time for fitness in my life, I have eliminated or reduced the time I spend on activities like watching TV, surfing the web or checking email. For example, instead of succumbing to the pressure to achieve “Inbox 0,” I now set aside time each day to check and respond to email. The result? Lots of time left in the day for productivity, physical activity and family time. Building this discipline into my schedule over the last few years has enabled me to make significant progress towards my larger life goals and career objectives.
To make time for professional growth and goal achievement, I have stopped wasting time in meetings with no agendas or defined outcomes. I have sharpened my ability to identify (and decline) low-priority engagements and my ability to say no to spending time with people who do not energize me. When I starting building this discipline into my life, I saw big leaps forward in the achievement of my work and professional goals.
Finally, family happiness and playtime. I have really had to work hard at this. I check in with myself constantly to make sure I make time for my family’s weekly routines, unplanned playtime and robust communication. When I practice these habits I find myself much closer to the entire family, which in turn creates massive energy that propels me in all areas of my life.
The key to maintaining discipline in fitness, work and family is simplicity. When I take time to appreciate the warmth of my family, that creates happiness. At work when my team and I stay focused on the controllable elements and not what someone else is not doing, we are happier. When I am simply running along an outdoor trail or doing basic fitness routines, I create my greatest sense of well-being. When life gets complicated, our happiness tends to drop significantly. But maintaining simplicity and discipline in fitness, work and family translates to a much-improved state of being.
