Stay Centered

I spent last week enjoying spring break with my family at our Beaver Creek, Colorado home. On my third day skiing, a man several feet in front of me on a long, flat, narrow part of the trail just fell down; his body, skis and poles splayed out over the entire space. With no options, I skied into him, came out of my bindings, and did a dive role onto the hard snow. As soon as the left ski binding popped, so did my calf. I knew immediately what I had done as I had the same injury, a torn calf, last season. After a couple of days of physical therapy, I was able to get back on skis, but I had to stay on mild terrain. I quickly realized that I had to change my stance because it hurt to be in the “correct position.” Normally when you ski, you position yourself at your center of gravity—feet shoulder width apart, knees bent, shoulders forward. This represents your most stable position. It would be harder to get knocked over from this position than from any other. As you encounter obstacles, your ability to stay centered provides the highest probability of keeping you on your feet.

How can you apply this logic of positioning yourself to stay centered in life, such that you maximize the probability that you will maintain your health, happiness, and wealth? Identify what should be done to create the optimum balance in each area of your life, then apply the discipline to take the necessary action to maintain each effectively. Doing this will better equip you to deal with anything that comes your way, and could even help you avoid certain challenges.

Let’s begin by looking at things that we can either influence or control.
• Health–You can control what you put in your mouth. Common sense suggests that if you maintain a healthy, well-balanced diet, combined with plenty of water each day, rather than ingesting mass amounts of unhealthy food and alcohol, you will probably live a longer, healthier life.
• Happiness—Your actions influence those around you. If you respect the people around you, and do right by them, especially those closest to you, they are more apt to treat you well in return. If you peacefully coexist with those closest to you, you have a higher probability of being a happy person.
• Wealth—You control what you spend. Do you live within your means? If you spend more than you take in, odds are it will catch up to you and lead to serious financial problems.

All three of these examples can be positively impacted with discipline. For example, you can choose to stop taking in large quantities of unhealthy foods. It’s a choice and one that requires discipline.

You can choose to have a positive attitude and respect those around you. It’s a choice and one that requires discipline.

You can choose to control your spending and save/invest part of your earnings. It’s a choice and one that requires discipline.

We can’t do everything we want to do in life. We must make choices. If the goal of those choices were to create the balance to stay centered, it could lead to a more rewarding existence.

Look at your health, your happiness, and your wealth. Identify areas of imbalance. A couple of weeks back I mentioned that I needed to get my diet under control. That was an area of imbalance for me. I applied some discipline and I am down 4 pounds in the last three weeks. I have the ability to control what I eat and I am choosing to exert that control.

Begin to examine your own imbalances. Which area of your life is not aligned as well as it could be? What could you do to bring it back balance? Is there a reason why you’re not doing it now? Commit to the discipline beginning today. Let someone close to you know so they can hold you accountable. Stay centered. Shoot me an email with your progress at [email protected].