Happy Monday my friend!
As you will have seen, you've received this email on Monday.
You may have been one of a few people in the community that I asked on social media recently about moving the emails from Friday to Monday – for the potential benefit of using the information in them as fuel to push you forward at the start of the week, and not the end.
Monday seemed to be the overwhelming preference...so here we are.
Our health outcomes are mostly by choice – and not by chance.
I appreciate that this fact hands us a huge amount of personal responsibility, but hear me out.
Too often we blame external factors for our ailing health.
We blame work, tiredness, birthday parties or other external factors as reasons why we aren't able to begin pushing the needle forwards with our health habits.
No doubt there are some factors that can provide obstacles.
Family and young children often being one that comes up.
Illness and injury being another.
But outside of that, many of the obstacles that we claim are drawing us away from good health are self-inflicted.
Because ultimately the choices that we can make – what time we wake up, what food we put into our mouths, how we respond to challenges, the time we decide to go to sleep – these are all directly in our hands.
And making the right choices in these instances help us to not leave things to chance.
We can't complain about our vitality and energy levels on a daily basis if we are only getting 5 hours of self-inflicted poor sleep alongside a diet that isn't what we know it should be.
We can't complain about stiff joints, a weak lower back and being winded climbing up one flight of stairs if we aren't using 30 minutes in our day to get some exercise in.
It's about choice, not chance.
And then those micro habits not engaged with in the short term will lead to the macro, long-term problems – the chronic diseases such as obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes and so on.
But what about genetics and health?
Without question, there are some health outcomes that are solely reliant on genetics.
Someone with sickle cell disease can unfortunately engage in all of the best health-promoting habits...but it will still not change the unfortunately terrible disease they have.
But the good news is that this isn't the majority of us.
And as such we shouldn't be leaving gains on the table and our health to chance.
Pinpoint the areas where choices can be made to better our health:
- The food that goes into our mouth daily
- Finding as little as 30 minutes in the day to move (even 15 minutes can be good - exercise snacks are powerful!)
- Deciding to go to bed and not stay up endlessly scrolling
It's about choice, not chance.
Personally speaking, I get how difficult the choice can be to make.
We live in a world of endless distractions, and things to throw us off the path.
But the reality is this: while we might get a temporary buzz from staying up and watching yet another episode of our favourite show, we pay for it the next day.
While we feel nice and relaxed in the immediate aftermath of missing training, we regret it soon after.
This isn't to say enjoy some downtime – we need that – its about understanding when the right time is to make the disciplined choice, and when the right time is to unwind.
I think writing this email at the start of the week is fuel for us all (myself included).
When a choice needs to be made for the betterment of yourself, just make it.
Delaying your gratification – and not giving into short-term temptations – will all be worth it in the end.
Choice, not chance.
Stay healthy,
Jeff
PS: If you got value from this email, I have a very small favour to ask: if you felt it gave you a lot of value, I ask that you send it to two of your friends who you think might benefit from it. Catch you soon!