Every individual has one life to live, and from childhood, we’re groomed with our future financial stability in mind. From going to school, to learning a trade, or even just having a lifetime trust fund tucked away somewhere, parents and guardians invest in the futures of their children or wards to ensure that they can be adequately stable financially at the very least, with most having hopes that such children or wards would surpass expectations and become wealthy with more money to extend to family and friends than just being able to survive and get by.

However, building a foundation for sound financial stability in the future goes beyond getting an education, learning a trade, or saving up for a trust fund. It begins with feeding right (balanced diet), having access to clean water, sanitation, and adequate healthcare to bolster the immune system and reduce susceptibility to illness and diseases, while helping to recover from them when they do occur. A child who does not feed well or have access to clean water, sanitation, and adequate healthcare has slimmer chances of surviving or growing up. Therefore whatever knowledge that child gained towards his or her development for the future could well be a waste.

So, the child is now grown up and ready to trade their knowledge or expertise gained over the years for some income. There are several macroeconomic factors that are sure to influence how financially stable they can actually be, but they are also micro factors including career choice, age, size of family (married or single), and very importantly, health status. A bedridden person perhaps could still make money, but that would most likely be quite limited compared to what they could make if they were strong, hale and hearty.

The question here is: Do we have to be sick and bedridden before our health can be a drawback to financial stability? The answer is no. As far as individuals and money-making are concerned, we trade our labour for income, or trade our capital for interests or dividends. For most people, first they have to trade labour for income, and then save up from that income so that they can invest by trading capital in order to build assets base for the future. In trading labour, we are tools in the goods and production cycle, and the best tools are ones that are constantly checked, oiled, upgraded, updated, or exercised for optimum efficiency.

This is where the issue of fitness and mental health come in. A person lacking fitness can of course still go to work and perform their core duties. The same applies to a person who is not completely mentally stable. But would they be performing at the same level as someone who is both physically fit and mentally stable? No, they won’t. In other words, they would not be performing optimally. What then is the guarantee that someone who would perform optimally in their stead would not end up taking their job and leaving them without employment?

There is no realistic expectation of financial well-being without firstly ensuring physical and mental well-being. These are sacrosanct prerequisites to financial well-being. More so because keeping fit and constantly checking on our mental health are ways of forestalling avoidable health issues that can deteriorate us to the point of being bedridden or worse, completely eliminating the prospect of earning an income in some cases.

Now that we have fully established the importance of fitness and mental health to financial well-being, what are some of the practices we can adopt in order to help us attain our best form as individuals who are very much seeking to attain and/or maintain financial stability and wellbeing? Some that many people around you are already doing include the following:

Eat (and Drink) Healthy

It is common knowledge that what we ingest has huge impacts on our health and life in general. Many who are familiar with fitness (especially those looking to lose weight) also know that every fitness journey begins with an intentional diet. Many health issues are related to diet, just as many recovery processes revolve around it. In order to stay fit enough to chase your dreams, you need to religiously mind what you eat and drink.

Adopt a Fitness Routine

When trying to reach full fitness, the diet is only half the work because it is incomplete without physical exercise. There is an expansive range of exercises from light cardio to weights. It is okay to pick whatever works for you when deciding on a routine, be it singular exercises or a blend of many, as long as it is intensive enough to yield results. It is also helpful to have targets and purposes when deciding on a fitness routine. For example, everyone knows that work is one of the biggest causes of stress. Choosing calming exercises like meditation help with stress relief.

Join a Gym or Workout Group

The best way to identify what exercises work for what, and to build consistency in terms of keeping up with fitness routines, is to join a gym or workout group. The power in collectivism here cannot be overemphasized. In a gym or workout group, you will meet people in different stages of their fitness journey. Some who are just starting out, some who are just starting to see progress, and some who have since hit their targets. The presence of an instructor is also immense, as this helps to make the tasks clearer, and steps towards your goals more clearcut.

Run Periodic Checks

It is a proven fact that many people who die from illnesses could have been saved if their conditions were discovered on time. Therefore, beyond eating right and working out, it is of great importance to always run periodic health checks. This does not only help to discover any impending problems and nip them in the bud, but also ensure that mental stability is gauged at these points in time in order to proffer solutions where necessary or recommend other healthy routines for stability to be maintained.

Drop Destructive Habits

The bane for many people is not what they eat or their lack of exercise, but other habits they indulge in which does them more harm than good. Examples of this are smoking, drinking, and indulging in drug use. While eating right, exercising and other useful habits can help you to attain physical and mental fitness, destructive habits can prove counterproductive to all that if they are not stopped before they can cause any major damages.

Set Goals

While it is great to eat right and exercise regularly, these activities would be a blind run in a dark night if goals are not set in order to help assess if the activities are achieving the intended results or not. Goals help us to know when to step our activities up, and what other realistic goals we should be aiming for once the previous ones have been achieved.

Be the Best You Can Be

In life, what matters more than seeing results and attaining set goals is to always keep an open mind towards constantly developing oneself. In a fast-paced world like the 21st century one we live in, there is constant research and constant advancements for those actively invested in improving themselves. Achieving our goals can be a slippery slope if it will make us comfortable and complacent. As long as we are alive, we should never stop improving ourselves.