Enjoying a Rich Life: Prioritizing Your Health

Has the last few years been a much for you and it’s taken a toll on your health? See how you can enjoy a rich life by getting healthy and fit!

The Challenge: Fit at 40ish

These past three years have been quite the ride. The pandemic has definitely affected me.

Nothing dramatic, but when you put it together I can see how things have shifted. Good and bad.

I have family and friends who are vulnerable to COVID because of health issues they already had, so I’ve been more cautious and that’s translated to me worrying a bit more.

On the plus side, I knew that social isolation wouldn’t be good for me or my family we started meeting up with others outdoors. I believe that was real helpful with keeping in touch with our friends and getting that fresh air.

Same thing with eating. On the plus side we cooked and ate more at home, but looking at the meals we picked, comfort foods topped the list.

Again, nothing crazy, but you stack these together for a few years and it starts. I see it on the scale, with my energy levels, and more.

So I’m turning that around this year and I’m prioritizing my health. Because I think it’s a core component to that rich life we talked about last week.

I want to enjoy hanging with our kids, become more active, and maybe find a new activity or hobby.

Besides the obvious physical benefits of getting fit, there’s also a mental and an emotional boost when you’re taking care of yourself that spills over to other areas of your life.

Which is why I’m thrilled to have Rich Jones on the podcast. He’s the award-winning creator founder of Find More Balance and the Mental Wealth Show where he discusses holistic health for high achievers.

A few years ago, Rich had his own transformation. By focusing on his mental and physical, Rich had some incredible personal and professional wins.

In this episode we’ll get into:

• Rich’s amazing journey of sobriety to becoming a national track champion
• healthy habits you can adopt to have meaningful improvements to your health
• how to take and make your health goals into reality

We have so much to cover, so let’s get started!

Resources to Get Healthy

If you’re ready to jump into the year and knock out some of your health and wealth goals, here are a few of my favorite resources and includes what we covered in the podcast.

• Best Budget and Money Apps: Personal Capital, Tiller, Mint
• Grab Your Copy: Jumpstart Your Marriage and Your Money
• The Mental Wealth Show: Rich’s podcast focused on holistic wellness for high achievers
• How I FINALLY Found Some Balance in My Life: Hear from Rich about his journey with finding balance.
• How to Keep a Gratitude Journal for Self-Care & Mental Health: This habit can be an eye-opener and a way to reset how you view things
• What’s the #1 habit Peter would suggest every person add to their daily regimen?

If you’d like to chat more your money system, please join us in our private and free Facebook group – Thriving Families.

We’re families looking to support and help one another out.

Hope to see you there!

Thank You to Our Sponsor Coastal!

Support for this podcast comes from Coastal Credit Union!

If you live in the Triangle area of North Carolina and you’d like someone to work with you on your goals, you really want to check out Coastal’s Wealth Management team.

They’d love to help you start investing for retirement and more!

Focus on Systems, Not Just Healthy Habits

After my discussion with Rich, I was inspired. I hope you are too. It’s amazing how prioritizing his health snowballed into so many other opportunities.

But here’s the big challenge we face: actually following through. How do you do it?

To jumpstart things, I’ll share how I’m breaking down my goals into habits and then into system. You can hopefully work through your goals and setup yours.

Create SMART Goals for Your Health

something I took away from my chat with Rich is think beyond the numbers when it comes to health. I need to look at my health holistically.

So for this year here are three key goals I want to work towards:

• Get to a healthy weight. (physical)
• Find a sport/activity that I enjoy. (mental)
• Schedule time to catch up with loved ones. (emotional)

Let’s turn these into SMART goals.

I’ve talked about this quite a few times, but I’m big fan of SMART goals. One reason is it’s an easy way to breakdown whatever goal you have into an action plan you can then use.

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Relevant
• Time-Based

Let's see how that break down for one my goals.

I’m scheduling an annual physical to confirm what a healthy weight is for me, but as a ballpark I’m planning on losing 30 lbs of fat.

Because I’m looking for something sustainable and not interested in a crash diet, the timeline I set is mid-December, around our next anniversary. That means I’m looking at around 2 1/2 lbs month, certainly achievable.

This goal is relevant to me because I want to improve my quality of life by enjoying more activities with my family and friends.

Polishing up, my SMART goal would look like this:

I want to lose 30lbs by December 15, 2023.

Keystone Habits for Healthy Living

Now that you have a goal you're working towards, let's look at which habits can help us achieve it.

For my goal, I need to focus on two area: exercising more and eating better.

For eating, one huge keystone habit is meal planning.

Building Systems to Get Fit

The last key ingredient is creating systems.

Don’t worry, these aren’t crazy productivity hacks. Think of systems as an easy on-ramp to developing better habits.

Instead of trying to change everything at once, I’ll only be focusing on one habits from each category each month. Why?

Because I want something that is sustainable. I want to develop a habit not just cross something on my list.

I truly hope this episode inspires you to prioritize your health.

Support the Podcast!

Thank you so much for listening to the podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and found it helpful, here are some ways to support it.

• Spread the word! If you enjoyed this episode and think it can help a buddy get on the path to dumping debt and become financially free, please share.
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• Leave a review. Honest feedback and reviews make a big difference and gets the word out about the podcast. Leave your review on Apple or Stitcher.
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Photo by Ella Olsson