Your most excellent key to success is yourself. The central ideology behind this philosophy is that it is almost impossible to be successful without a healthy body and soul. It’s almost like you have to water a sapling for it to grow and produce. The most fundamental productivity advice comes from the phrase “sharpen the saw”
Here, this phenomenon is compared to sharpening your saw. This phrase comes from the story of two woodcutters, one who was an amateur and an expert. They challenged each other to see who could a tree faster. The expert took a break in the middle and sharpened his sword. This time to recover, and a sharper blade aided in him winning the contest.
Investment in self can be made on four different levels, namely:
Caring for your body
A healthy body is a home to a healthy mind. Your body is your physical form of control. The healthier you keep it, the more you’ll be able to keep it productive. There are various ways of doing this. The most important is keeping yourself groomed and tending to your body’s physical needs.
Nobody comes with an instruction manual; however, the basics are known to everyone. First, one must exercise regularly to keep those joints working. Second, avoiding eating junk is going to improve the system drastically. Third, your body is like a machine; it needs its parts to work efficiently and do the right thing.
Caring for your emotions
One of the most ignored factors regarding self-care, emotional health is vital to look after. Most people overlook this because they feel emotions as passing clouds; however, they do not realize the true impact of negative feelings and how they can affect physical health.
The key to having a solid emotional base is keeping good company around that encourages positive emotions. These relationships aid in bonding activities like deep, reflective conversations, providing love and affection.
You can also care for your emotional health without others, as introverts might prefer. The way to do this is to understand emotions like gratitude. Gratitude positively impacts your expression of other emotions. Meditation and doing other activities you enjoy are equally important.
Productivity is hard to achieve when you’re emotionally drained.
Taking care of your mind
Intellect is an endearing trait in today’s day and age. Taking care of the mind just as much as the body is essential to ensure the brain is working up to total capacity.
Cognitive decline is widespread with age. People as young as 50 start reporting symptoms of mental decline. There are various ways to exercise the brain to retain its youth for as long as possible. This included intellectually challenging things like brain games or puzzles.
Learning is one of the most common ways to do this. The brain absorbs more information, and the better it functions. Doing a course to touch up specific skills or reading a book is the best way. Expression of creativity also shows similar results. Working on a creative project will also help tune the brain.