Last week, while taking one of my long walks in nature, I started wondering about the reason I do most of the things I do in my life. Since my early twenties, I have had this vision of what type of person I would like to become and that in turn has shaped my daily life. One of the first lists I made of the goals I had in mind looked something like this:
- Become a well-read/cultured person to expand my views on the world & be able to have critical thinking.
- Dedicate time to understand myself - from a deeper psychological & emotional view.
- Train my body regularly, try to maintain a fit appearance and reach my sport goals (mostly related to climbing).
- Reach economical stability, not to have to depend on anyone (and at some point, anything).
- Dedicate part of my life to help others as I consider myself to be fortunate enough to be born in a farly priviledged life.
- I want to achieve control of my own mind to be able to focus and spend time on the things I believe are important.
Looking at these goals, which still very well align to what I am striving today, it made me wonder: by following these goals, what am I actually improving in my life? Basically, how do these goals translate to actual improvements?
Following these goals has made me do drastic changes in my lifestyle where I have seen incredible improvements in the last years. I wanted to clasify these into different themes and I have finally settled for what I call "My three main pillars for self-improvement": Body, mind and spirit.
My three cornerstone pillars for self-improvement:
These pillars are very different but at the same point must be nurtured ecually for one to advance in the path of life. All of these are definitely correlated and help eachother in wonderful ways, I see the mind and the body as the base and a pre-requisite to the arguably hardest one: Spirit. I have been thinking about what each one of these pillars mean to me and I will try write my thoughts here as condensed as I possibly can.
Body
Many would think this as just a "get fit" step. Go to the gym, pump some iron and be in decent shape but it is so much more than. Taking care of your body is all about habits, healthy habits.- Just building muscle is one of the factors. I like to take a more holistic view: Staying active, strong and flexible. What is the point of being extremelly strong when you can't run 100m or not being able to touch your toes while standing? Find a balance where you feel confortable in the most uncorfortable positions.
- A healthy sleep schedule. Stick to always going to bed at the same time and you will naturally wake up at roughly the same time every day. Leave some space in the morning to be able to sleep more if you have had a rough day the day before.
- Diet. Everybody is different and each body reacts differently to the food we consume daily. Experiment with your diet! Low-carb/keto, Vegan/vegetarian, Carnivore, No gluten, no dairy... There are so many things to try and explore. It is such an exciting journey to find a sweet spot in your diet!
As the romans said: mens sana in corpore sano. It is much easier to have a healthy mind when you have a healthy body.
Mind
Tricky, very tricky. For me this pillar is all about reading books, learning and educating yourself as well as cultivating a healthy and resilient mind. As far as the point of educating yourself, for many it this task comes naturally, as a desire to know the world AKA curiosity. In my case I have always struggled with the short-term/direct satisfaction of playing videogames or watching series, leaving all my studying to the side. I had to start working on building a resilient and determined mind to be able to actually sit and read.Spirit
The hardest of them all, specially because its not easily reproduceable from other peoples experiences. Finding true meaning and purpose in life, connecting with something that is greater than oneself. How do we even start to cultivate something like this? One has to go deep deep down and explore its own beliefs, values, and inner spirituality. This one is very personal and there is no one ring fits all.I don't consider myself a religious person but I would say I am spiritual. I believe there is something more out there that our limited comprenhension of the world can not see. I drive myself by the what one could define as laws of nature. I believe there is an innate source of peace in all of us that we can reach by helping others. Same as there is an innate source of suffering by doing bad things to others.
Parting thoughts
These are what I consider my main pillars and values. My ultimate objective is reach a certain degree of peace, which I feel I am achieving slowly but steadily.
What are your goals? What are your pillars?
See you next time!
Nicely written and its beneficial to read. My goal in life is to witness the joy of my mother and my kids. But somehow,numerous challenges have made it so hard to achieve. However, it is our desire and our efforts to obtain it that matter. It will undoubtedly take some time, but if we are persistent and work hard, everything will undoubtedly turn out for the best.
Parenthood is a whole another scope in the self-development path, I hope some goals related to parenthood will pop up in my list in the future but who knows. Stay strong for these challenging times!
Unfortunately, we don't have a manual or a school to be good parents. Although there is a lot of writing about parenthood, it's not as easy as ABC.
I am a mother and a father to my children because I am a single mother. It is not easy. There are many things that I have to deal with, including accusations and insults towards me because I had to leave my children with my parents to be taken care of because of my work and because I had to travel before.
This time I had the opportunity to be with them after almost 20 years of travelling and working. I also feel that when COVID-19 infected the whole world, it opened my eyes and taught me a lot of lessons that I want to approach more with my children and my family.
Our emotional and physical wellbeing are what really count. We must be in good physical and mental health in order to care for our children, or it will be challenging. I too had some mental illness and hypertension, and I do feel helpless when there is nothing I can do to help. But in order to become healthy, I need to regulate and alter a lot of aspects of my daily routine and nutrition.
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