16 Strategies to Success

As all rivers flow into seas, all aspects of our holistic health make up the wholeness of who we are. 

The quality of our relationships influence the quality of our lives. 

When our minds, bodies, and spirits are connected, our well-being is protected. The following list of 16 strategies, separated into four domains, make up over 90% of our wellness — deliberately utilizing them maximizes energy, time, and meaning.

MIND

Self-Awareness: The Foundation for Growth

Understanding our own personalities, emotions, needs, and triggers is the starting point for transformation. Self-awareness is the mirror that reveals where we’re aligned and where we’re off course. Journaling, mindfulness, personality assessments, and conversations with those we trust help us better understand our inner worlds.

Goal-setting: Positive Emotion through Intention & Action

Happiness derives from progress. Progress catalyzes from pursuit. Pursuit initiates through intention. Once we set our minds on specific, measurable, and challenging intention… we advance through our days with a clearer and more robust mindset. Take an hour per month or a half-day per Quarter to write out personal and professional aims and action plans.

Anxiety Reduction / Stress Management: Becoming Emotionally Fit

Feelings are meant to be felt. Emotions are meant to be acknowledged. Fears are meant to be focused on, identified, and addressed. We cannot defeat what we do not define. Outside of our daily disciplines, breath-work and life-giving activities should be embraced. What brings you joy, peace, and tranquility each week? Always find time and prioritize those… even if it’s for minutes rather than hours.

Belief System: Ideas, Thoughts, & Words that Empower

External decisions reflect internal dialogues. Apathy, doubt, and worry are normal responses to abnormal circumstances; choose investigation instead of prediction and projection. While we are emotional, sentient beings… we are also capable of thinking through perceptions that hold us back or propel us forward. What we repeatedly tell ourselves become our realities. Are the stories made up within your inner narratives 100% correct or attempting to keep you safe? Think about the words and pictures that uplift, support, and bring out the best version of you. Talk and write about yourself using similar language that your best friend would. Interrupt what’s limiting and replace them with what’s empowering.

BODY

Discipline: Make Promises & Keep Them

Activities, foods, and information either hydrates or dehydrates us. When we choose to stay up late instead of going to sleep, that’s a choice of short-term satisfaction over delayed gratification. When we choose apple pies over apples, those are choices of present-moment preference over long-term purpose. When we mindlessly watch or listen to shows or music that dampen our mood, that’s indifference over discipline. Daily disciplines determine destiny. Attempts at perfection can be self-abusive; embodying excellence (life-giving choices 80-90% of the time or more) through discipline leads to self-mastery. Self-mastery is an award nobody can take away from us. Consume consciously. Do your best to make the best choices for the best parts of you. Who do you want to become in the future?—What actions would that specific identity take? Make promises to yourself, and keep them.

Movement & Resistance Training: The Best Workout is the One that’s Done

Physical reflects mental. In a similar vein to our thoughts affecting our actions… our behaviors have the power to up-regulate our nervous system. Breaking a sweat, pushing resistance, and pulling weight are symbolic as much as they are healthy. Dosage matters, of course. Each exercise we complete provides evidence of what we are capable of, while increasing our capacities to do even more next time. Find your preferred methods of conditioning (yoga, hiking, functional fitness, sports, etc) and commit to those a few to several times per week. Your future-self will be grateful and your present-self will be proud that you’re stronger than your past-self.

Relaxation & Visualization: Mindful Even When One’s Mind is Full

The more relaxed we become, the better we might feel… the better we might feel, the more relaxed we may want to become. A body at rest is able to release its stress through intentional breaths. All throughout each day, we make ourselves do things… For 10 minutes each day, let yourself be. Let your body rest heavily so your mind can wander freely. Relax areas of your body that seem full of tension. Become aware of your bodily sensations and breathing (inhalation-exhalation) instead of what’s next. See, in your mind’s eye, all that you want. Events happen twice: first in imagination and then in reality. Create a worthwhile future in your mind, then attract it in your everyday life.

Nature & Sunlight: Get Outside to Regulate Inside

Walks in nature connect us with what’s greater. Our 24-hour, circadian rhythm relies on natural light exposure. Through awe-inspiring nature and consistent sunlight, our mood stabilizes. If and when we cannot get outside, for whatever reason, a vitamin-D supplement, known as the sunlight micronutrient, staves off negativity and increases overall energy level. What’s natural and sunny is also wonderful and healthy. Go to the water. Go to the woods. Find the sun and let the sun find you. The alternative is staying inside, both physically and socially, ruminating and ruminating. Which sounds and feels better to you? Embrace nature and let sunlight nurture.

SPIRIT

Reflection & Introspection: Quietly Ask & Receive

Meditation is listening to God. Prayer is talking to God. Together they make up communication with God, whatever and whoever we perceive as the greatest possible good. The bliss of quietness is a gift often overlooked. Daily or weekly, carve out time alone to observe, to notice, and to let go of what’s heavy on your heart. Finish this worthwhile endeavor with intention and a mind-plan to follow up on before returning to the noisy, external world. What do you really want? Ask, and you shall receive — Matthew 7:7.

Adventure & Travel: Get Lost on Purpose

Stepping out of our routines, into new environments, broadens perspective and refreshes our spirits. Imagine a human being full of thousands of light switches, most of which remain dormant and turned off. By visiting previously-unexplored places on Earth, these switches turn on. We discover aspects of ourselves we never knew were there. A few times per year, go to a novel location. Leave your expectations at home. Embrace these travels with childlike curiosity and wonder. “No man steps in the same river twice… for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.” Roam and wander to evolve and expand your perspectives.

Gratitude Journaling: Rehearse the Healthiest Human Emotion

When we are thankful, we cannot be angry. When we are grateful, we cannot be sad. When we change our expectation to appreciation, our outlooks shift… from feelings of oppression to optimism, pessimism to positivity, negativity to productivity. Gratitude is our strength shield — it protects us from defeatist infections of the mind. As often as possible, prime the mind with what you have rather than what you lack. Remind yourself of who’s in your corner and why you have reasons to be thankful. Since you will see what you aim at… make the target: gratitude. Nothing’s too big or too small — what and who are you grateful for? 

Service: What Breaks Your Heart? Go Do Something About That

It’s profound to learn that neuroticism, a generalized proclivity to negative emotion, consumes human beings who spend too much time thinking only about themselves. Self-consciousness, if and when personified for too long, turns into negative fantasy. We, as masters of our own fates, combat neuroticism through service. Helping others indirectly helps ourselves. Be selfish in your selflessness. Think about a cause you really care about, and then take the initiative to charitably volunteer in that specific arena. Who needs you? Who could use your generosity? Who could benefit from your benevolence? Find an excuse or find a way to give what can… be it money, time, and or energy.

RELATIONSHIPS

Play: Keeping the Child Inside Alive & Well

Aristotle once accurately stated, “We do not stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” Flexible, durable, and resilient trees sway their branches in the wind similar to how we ought to dance to music, laugh to humor, and experience awe in what’s awesome. Carve out time in your calendar to cooperatively compete with family and friends. Board games, sporting events, and senses of humor are all encouraged. Don’t underestimate the pure joy of laughing until you cry, pushing the boundaries of your imagination and playfully creating without rules and regulations. You don’t have to be childish, but you ought to be childlike.

Role Models: Success Leaves Clues

20% of Nobel Prize winners had mentors who also won a Nobel Prize. We are not given a manual on how to live life. Wise individuals with experience are the greatest roadmaps on how to proceed. Growth accelerates when we have someone to look up to. Whether in business or in sport, there’s always someone who has already faced the challenges you inevitably will. Actively seek out mentors and role models who have the characteristics and qualities you aspire to adopt. Who has achieved the goals you want? Reach out to them directly. Read books. Listen to podcasts. Learn, learn, learn. Most, if not all, successful people followed successful people. Seek, and you will find — again, Matthew 7:7.

Belonging & Community: Environment of Excellence

Setting influences mindset, healthset, heartset, and soulset. Our external surroundings shape our internal states. We must go where we are celebrated, not just tolerated. We must join what’s accepting and avoid what’s rejecting. We must create an exterior garden that supports our interior growth — bright, light, and inspiring instead of dull, dark, and draining. Alone? No, with relatable relationships. Communication with community amplifies joy, healing, and growth. Intentionally adjust aspects of your everyday life, workplace, and bedroom so each location is most conducive to peak performance in those places. Buy artwork or a poster if it motivates you. Remove clutter if it makes you feel more free. Purchase a high-quality pillow if it leads to a better night’s sleep. What seemingly tiny changes could make a huge difference? Mini changes in process and environment lead to massive enhancements in results.

Alignment: Self-chosen Responsibility, Religion, & Relationships

We derive more intrinsic meaning when our responsibilities are aligned with our true passions and personalities. We experience greater enjoyment when we engage with like-minded and like-valued people. We grow in proportion to alignment, when we personally agree we are in the right place at the right time doing what seems right to us right now with the right people. Stop living to please others. Stop doing things just because you always have. Stop engaging in activities outside of your core values and beliefs. Start living authentically by choosing the weight you’d like to carry, the words you’d like to worship, and the people you’d like to love. Start doing things that actually matter to you… on your own terms, in your own way. Start pouring in the cups who reciprocally pour back into your own. Do this, intentionally.

Everything is connected to everything else. Why do we sometimes forget to put first principles first? We regain traction by reducing distractions and re-choosing these 16 strategies to “success.”

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” - Carl Jung

Maximize energy.

Maximize time.

Maximize meaning.

— MG