It is our inner (mind) game that determines our outer (body) game. It is our emotional fitness that truly determines our outer health and fitness. This is where the real shift needs to happen. In culture today, much value is placed on the importance of having a strong, fit, healthy body, and less attention is paid to developing healthy emotional muscles.
Emotional fitness means being able to keep a positive outlook when life gets tough. It is the idea that we are fit in a way that we are responding to life and the emotions that come up, versus reacting to life. It is the simple concept that our minds need routine exercise and training just as much as our bodies do to stay healthy and fit. We must train the emotional aspects of our lives.
Emotional fitness is an ongoing commitment to looking inward, processing through difficult emotions, and working toward self-awareness and self-improvement.
We already know the various benefits of exercise on our physical fitness – increase in strength, stamina, and mobility to name a few. We also know that we will not reap those benefits if we do not actually put in the work physically and start sweating it out.
The same exact thing is true for emotional fitness. We can read all we want about having good energy or how to stay calm under pressure, but the only way to improve our emotional fitness is to do the necessary inner work to increase our capacity in those areas. If we do the inner work, we are more aware and can connect to our thoughts, our feelings, and our experiences.
Keeping our awareness in the now, and the feelings we are currently having, allows us to respond to the now and not react to the past.
Emotional fitness reinforces a positive mindset. Having our head and heart aligned and our desires and lifestyle aligned allows us to lead our lives in a positive emotional state to keep moving forward and to keep progressing. Progress = Power
“It all begins and ends in your mind. What you give power to, has power over you, If you allow it.” – Leon Brown
A few 🔑 ways we can build a better relationship with our emotions:
- Practice Daily Mindfulness – We need to build up our attentional muscle and learn to control what we choose to focus on or what we choose to disengage from. Starting a daily mindfulness practice, such as feeling your breath or meditation or yoga, can really help us have more control over our attention and thought pattern. Developing this attention control is a crucial skill for emotional fitness.
- Build Positive Thinking Skills – If we want to get serious about changing how we think about things, we need to develop good positive thinking skills. This way of thinking will allow for us to worry and ruminate less, make better decisions, and stay focused. Which will then ultimately help us see the best in life, ourselves, and others. Thoughts become things. What we imagine becomes true. What we visualize we attract. We are 100 percent responsible for our life experiences.
- Pay Attention to Thoughts & Feelings – Things themselves don’t make us feel the way we do; instead, it’s the way we think about things that impacts us emotionally. Those thoughts are what cause our emotions and those thoughts determine the quality of how we feel on a normal basis. If we change how we think about things, we can change how we feel about them as well. Notice what makes you happy, sad, stressed, or angry – it is ok to have negative emotions but know that you have the power to overcome those negative thinking patterns.
- Set and Pursue Goals – Setting goals helps us focus on learning and growing and creating purpose. Each action we take to reach a goal is a success we can build on. Who we become in our attempt at achieving a goal is where the real growth takes place. Always keep the momentum and keep moving forward – never seize to keep progressing.
- Create Healthy Relationships – Being conscious and having standards about who we surround ourselves with makes a huge difference. We should make sure we are around people who elevate us and hold us to a high standard as well. Spending time with people who make us happy and give off positive energy will help us accumulate and attract that back into our own lives. Help others in need – finding a way to put a smile on someone else’s face affects us just as much as it affects them.
It is so important to be able to be in tune with and label the emotions we are feeling. Our emotions are feedback to our perception of our current reality and our physical body is a reflection our our emotional well-being. Combining our physical and emotional fitness honors the mind-body connection to help us reach a more consistent “flow” or state of performance and productivity.
Start flexing those emotional muscles too! 🧠