Tip #41: Work Out Daily!
Some of you read the title or saw the pic and immediately thought "work out every day? Ain't nobody got time for that!" Hold your horses for a minute. I'm not talking about working outphysically every day (although that's not a bad idea). Check this out: just over a month ago, our school took a group of 64 young men to Leadership Academy at Outdoor Odyssey (LAOO) to develop their leadership potential. We teach these young men to be Ethical Protectors and to be balanced in their life's MEPS (mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual) triangle parts. While this experience at LAOO was life-changing for many of our young men, the only way we can measure true success of the program is to see these young men continuing their MEPS workouts on a daily basis. How about you? Have you considered that your life has MEPS triangle parts? Let it sink in for a minute and then take a look at these few ways you can keep them in balance: Mental Workouts: Read books, play challenging games (like Chess, UNO, Monopoly, Sodoku, card games, etc.), watch educational documentaries on TV, put a puzzle together, take a class at school (like humanities, art, sociology, etc.)... Emotional Workouts: volunteer/do community service, say hello to a stranger, do random acts of kindness, guard your heart, forgive others that hurt you, laugh a lot, cry when you need to (and only when you need to)... Physical Workouts: take the stairs instead of the elevator, go the long way to class, play a sport (on a team or club), exercise, watch what you eat... Spiritual Workouts: pray, read a devotional, meditate, take long walks in the park, enjoy nature's beauty, journal, listen to inspirational music, attend church, join a small group/support group... Those are just a few ways you can keep your MEPS triangle parts in check. If you feel that it's hard to work on each of those parts of the MEPS triangle on a daily basis, just work on one a day. Start small and then eventually make them habits!
Written 7/12/2014 by John Weaver