Healthy High Achiever Blog

I have spent years helping people improve their ability to perform "well", their health (energy and fitness), essentially their quality of their life, as I have improved mine.

If there was one underlying quality I’ve identified in those who are more consistent at taking care of themselves and achieving their goals in a healthy way, that has made the difference, it is this… emotional fitness: a resilient sense of self.

I can tell you from personal experience, that it is overly challenging to live a lifestyle that works for you, if you have a "fragile" sense of self and are not resilient due to a lack of emotional fitness. Think about it… combine a fragile sense of self with even the early stages of overwhelm and exhaustion, and you could find yourself knee deep in depression, food or alcohol to numb the pain. Needless to say this is not resiliency.

Resiliency is when you are able to free yourself from emotional hangup and move forward. A resilient sense of self, means you have emotional fitness and it needs to be developed.

If your ability to express your drives, needs and feelings are bound in shame and guilt, your emotional fitness has not been developed well. If so, you will find yourself frequently stuck (the primary symptom), and your ability to endure change will be weak. Life today can be nerve wracking and chronically painful if you don’t have the ability to change.

The way to develop emotional fitness, is to embrace the discomfort you feel when doing those things (make those changes) that stress you. Basically, getting grounded in the experience you are having difficulty with is the way to develop emotional fitness and it’s not easy to do, particularly if you are a perfectionist or suffering from Performance Addiction.

Of course, I ‘m not talking about situations that are unsafe. What I’m referring to here are those situations that simply challenge your emotional capacity, those aspects of yourself or routines, or actions that you don’t have confidence in… yet.

If you don’t embrace the development of emotional fitness, simple day to day, hour to hour, minute to minute changes can be hard to make and the reality is, this can’t be if you want to live with sustainability… 

An inability to manage your emotions leads to an avoidance lifestyle which can have major consequences over time, beginning with the downward trend.

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You’ve heard me say that "your lifestyle" is the way in which you achieve your goals. If this is true, then being able to change your lifestyle is fundamental to successful living.

Just imagine the handicap you’re living with if you are not emotionally fit. Life requires that we be nimble, agile and flexible, healthy, energetic, strong and enduring, empathic with ourselves and others, and able to communicate to be successful. Each of these qualities requires strong, emotionally fit hardwiring to support it.

If you are feeling in doubt as you read this, thinking you are lacking in this area, you’re not alone. Actually you are part of a huge group of people (practically a population) who is sorting through their past as they try to cope, adapt to and thrive in the modern day endurance test we all face today.

In other words, none of us is used to the pace of life these days and we’re all building emotional fitness by default, let alone waking up the reality that a healthy high performing body is not an option - the result of your lifestyle. The question is whether or not you are embracing this process, or trying as much as possible to avoid the pain of adapting.

Hint: embracing the discomfort is the way to go.

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Performance Lifestyle training teaches us how to adapt our lifestyle to meet and exceed the demands in our lives and how to maintain quality of life, even in the face of relentless demand.

Performance Lifestyle requires emotional fitness.

Personally, despite my ability to feel the fear and do it anyway (at least a good portion of the time), I have often dealt with undue stress and struggle. I did not develop strong emotional fitness growing up. And at one time or another, it has made just about every aspect of my lifestyle and goal achievement hard.

Developing emotional fitness is still a challenge, I’m just more confident now that I have embraced the need for it and am no longer avoiding emotional experiences. Learning how to develop emotional fitness and the resilient sense of self that ensues, has been the journey of my life, and I know for fact, I’m not alone in this journey.

Share your thoughts…

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John Allen Mollenhauer is the Founder of Performance Lifestyle Solutions, the better healthier ways to achieve your goals in life, business and sport. As a former worn down workaholic turned healthy high achiever John Allen (aka “JAM”) will teach you how to Live Like a Pro,optimizing your lifestyle the way athletes do. He is the creator of the Healthy High Achiever - Unleash the Full Potential of Your Lifestyle to Perform, Look and Feel Better!