Minute With Mallon: Blueprint of Balanced Life

Sep 5

Written By Robert Mallon

🙋🏻‍♂️Are you aware of the impact that seemingly small, daily decisions can have on your overall well-being?

Something I Taught:

In the last newsletter, we discussed this concept:

We don’t create our futures, we determine our habits, and our habits create our future.

It's such an important concept that I thought it would be beneficial to dive in a little deeper this week.

Recently, I was working with a client who is really succeeding in the business world. What the outside world sees looks very appealing. The problem is that the rest of his life is not where he wants it to be; in fact, it was driving him in the opposite direction to success.

We determined that if he continued down the path he was on, he would totally miss the future he truly wants because his work and career were getting in the way of consistently doing the right things in his life.

So we took time during a recent session to determine exactly what he wants five to ten years from now. What did he want his whole life to look like? Not just his career, but everything – all the important aspects of his life. By asking the right questions, we were able to get a very specific picture of his ideal future.

In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, author Stephen Covey lays out four areas of life that we need to pay attention to so that we can "Sharpen the Saw." These lead to self-renewal and continuous improvement.

Physical: (exercise, nutrition, rest)
Social/Emotional: (meaningful relationships and having a positive outlook)
Mental: (continuous learning, reading, writing, etc.)
Spiritual: (nature, prayer, relationship with God, meditation, service, etc.)

All of these mean different things to different people and there are different avenues to achieve them. The problem is that when we ignore any of these areas, bad things happen.

My client was working so much that everything else was being neglected. He needed to adopt new habits to cultivate a more balanced way of living. So we devoted most of a coaching session to determining which small habits most appealed to him. There are many options, but we ended up narrowing it down to one in each category.

Then we set up a plan for implementing these into his life.

Decide —> Take Action

As we have discussed, the key is consistency. Even doing as little as five minutes a day in each area OVER TIME will bring massive results in a person's life.

So when you look at the list above, what is One Small Habit that you can begin today or tomorrow morning? Then get started.

"The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones."

- Confucius

Something I Learned:

I stumbled onto a short series on Netflix called "Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zones." I've watched three episodes so far and they're very interesting.

Author Dan Buettner takes you to five unique communities where people live extraordinarily long and vibrant lives. In each community, he finds four things particular to those communities that make a difference to their inhabitants’ health and wellbeing. Episode 2 focused on the island of Sardinia. Such a beautiful place!!!

Four traits they found there were:

● Steepness

● Good Carbs

● Control Stress

● Care for Elders

Steepness: The villages are very steep, so these folks walk up and down hills their whole lives. Walking is their chief mode of travel, so they are inevitably moving all day long. This constant, incidental physical activity reduces instances of diabetes and heart disease. Compare that to us: Most of us sit more than half the day. Sitting at desks, sitting watching TV, sitting at the dinner table. Most of us live sedentary lifestyles.

Good Carbs: On Sardinia they eat lots of breads, pastas, whole grains, and beans. The staples of sourdough bread and minestrone looked amazing. But the key was High Fibers. They found that high carbs are not bad – if prepared the right way.

Control Stress: In America there is one man for every five women who reach the age of 100. In Sardinia, it’s a 1:1 ratio. They have lots of time with their animals, take naps, and enjoy conversation and sometimes wine at the end of the day with friends. They do have stress, but it's short-term stress, which turns out to be good for you! On the other hand, long-term stress is incredibly unhealthy. A good example: We tend to watch the news, which we have absolutely no control over, and then we stress about every item we see. They don't. Their secret is to focus on what they can control.

Care for Elders: In their culture, Sardinians value and honor the elderly. They see them as wise and take great care of them. Older people are deeply embedded in the community and continue to contribute throughout their lives. The program talked about a study that found that going into a retirement home can make a person lose 2-6 years from their lives. Now this doesn't happen to everyone, but when people get lonely, they tend to decline rapidly. In contrast, Sardinians continue to care and take care of their elder family members each day.

As you read these factors, what's one thing that comes to mind to help you to live vibrantly as you age? Seriously, think of just one thing right now, and decide to do it! By taking that one step, you are already on the road to success in that area and you’re being proactive in creating a more extraordinary life!

Something to Ponder:

"A real decision is measured by the fact that you've taken new action. If there's no action, you haven't truly decided."

Tony Robbins

Something I Saw: