“Holy guacamole – I’m doing a Benjamin Button!”

This is NOT something I thought I would ever say…and yet, this week I said it.

I recently joined a new gym to challenge myself with lifting heavier weights over winter.

At my first session, the gym owner asked me why I train and I said “to be fit and healthy enough to run and play with my future grandkids”.

Given I am 47 next month and my kids are 8 and 10, this really is a stretch goal!

The gym encourages clients to do regular body scans to track changes in lean muscle mass and fat mass. At my second body scan this week I got some good news. I have already shaved 1 year off my bio age!

As I write this, I have a bio-age of 45 years.

And the crazy thing is – I actually FEEL younger!

When we underpin our performance with vitality, our performance lifts and becomes more sustainable.

Physical wellbeing is one of our seven core needs as humans, and when we meet this need, we fire-up our very best qualities.

Without vitality, it’s really hard to be courageous, or caring, or curious, or creative or playful – because we’re stuck in survival mode.

The wonderful book “Dancing At The Edge -Competence, Culture and Organization in the 21st Century” explores the capacities a ‘person of tomorrow’ might need to navigate the growing challenges of the future.

The following passage from the book speaks powerfully to the importance of prioritising our own wellbeing in order to serve the greatest good.

“Persons of tomorrow are not martyrs who neglect their own wellbeing while they look out for others. They include themselves among the people they care for. They are often catalysts for remarkable projects and inspirational activity: but the catalyst has failed if it burns up in the experiment.”

NEED A LITTLE HELP?

How are you going with cultivating vitality so that you can sustain strong performance and ignite your very best qualities?

We all need a little help, from time-to-time.

If you live with an inner narrative that makes it hard to take good care of yourself, reach out to chat about how my IFS-informed approach to coaching might help. IFS (Internal Family Systems) is a model that empowers us to change our relationship with our many different ‘parts’ and feel more connected to our true essence.

You can reach me on [email protected]