Location: Company HQ – Reading Time: 5mins
I’m very happy to post this excellent Guest Post by Matt Gartland of HealthyLifestyleDesign.com. Matt comes to the VBL table with some great concepts and ideas on embracing lifestyle design, with the focus on health, more then anything else.
Many people believe that business is boring. These are the same folks that work gloomy 9-5 jobs, believe that meetings are sacred, and are addicted to bureaucratic procedures. Haunting images of Dilbert, Office Space, and The Office come to mind.
These same people believe that health is boring. They are apathetic about their food choices, believe that exercise is stressful, and are surprisingly “too busy” to get healthy. Of course, they think that “healthy” is a straight-jacket restraining personal freedom, indulgence, and fun.
But that’s not you. That’s not me. We don’t settle for conventional wisdom’s. We think and act differently. We design our lives the way we want them. And in so doing, we’ve come to learn that one aspect of our life profoundly influences the next.
And so it is with business and health. The same mindset applies to optimizing both. This may not be obvious on the surface. But half-truths live at the surface. True meaning lies deeper. So let’s dive in and discover the ways you can manage your healthy life just like your virtual business.
1. Unleash Your Healthy Lifestyle Passion
Genuine and unyielding passion is a nonnegotiable when creating your virtual business. Some call it a labor of love. Granted, you may not be the next Gary Vaynerchuk, but passion is required to stimulate momentum, accelerate growth, bust-through obstacles, gain followers/customers, and unleash the maximum potential of your business.
The same ardent and visceral passion is needed to design an amazing and euphoric healthy lifestyle. Apathy, sloth, conformity, and fear are sins of a healthy lifestyle that will try to deny you success. Don’t let them. Use your passion to adopt lifelong healthy goals, experiment with diverse health foods, experiment with new fitness activities, and shrug-off unhealthy naysayers.
In the end, your business and health will rise and fall with the weight of your passion. Don’t be timid. Be bold, healthy bold!
2. Maintain Your Health Mobility
Most corporate 9-5 gigs are jail sentences in disguise. Hence, our virtual businesses aim to release us from static entrapment and allow us to enjoy mobile tranquility!
Pure health mobility (while manifestly different) is equally vital and orgasmic to your personal healthy lifestyle. In the healthy lifestyle context, mobility means freedom to pursue whatever healthy pursuits and indulgences you desire.
Health mobility is largely cognitive. Why? Because the unhealthy majority perceive a healthy life as one of confinement. They believe you must eat the same boring foods repeatedly. They think you must engage in mindless exercise for hours to get in shape. These mental constructs are all tragic health cliches that inhibit healthy free will. Literal health mobility is important too. And don’t limit yourself to running, unless running is your passion. Get creative! Go hiking, biking, or dancing. Try swimming, indoor rock climbing, or any sport. You get the idea – which is simply to be active, period!
3. Outsource Your Health Minutia
Any virtual business is littered with things to do. You simply can’t do it all. Enter outsourcing – the panacea of task overload. Use outsourcing to offload all your small, robotic, inconsequential, and repetitive tasks. The vacuum of free time this creates can be used for more important work.
Did you know that you can outsource your healthy lifestyle minutia too? You can…well, kinda. You can’t outsource your life to someone else to make healthier. But you can maximize your healthy lifestyle productivity (the essence of outsourcing).
How so? First, stop all your dispassionate obligations that don’t contribute to your good health. Second, swap time-intensive activities for time-condensed activities. Third, quit worrying about details like calorie counting. And last, let go of what you can’t control!
4. Put Your Health on Auto-Pilot
Passive income generation is a brilliant ambition for any virtual business. Such revenue streams liberate your time and energy for bigger projects and greater leisure! They also provide a peace-of-mind security net should you choose to pursue a higher-risk endeavor.
Automating your healthy lifestyle is equally advantageous. It liberates massive amounts of mental and physical energy while providing a reassuring base to your life.
How do you create such Health Automation?
First, establish your lifestyle goals upfront to avoid constant rework (very mentally draining). Second, establish your healthy base routines (e.g. workout times and plans) to avoid inefficiency and promote rhythm. Third, develop a regular sleep routine (vital to a healthy life). And last, keep only healthy food in the house so that you never have to scramble to make a healthy meal.
Succeeding at virtual business and healthy living has never been so easy! The same recipe applies to both. And as a successful virtual business owner already, you have no excuse not to catapult your healthy lifestyle to the same remarkable level!
And here’s the final secret – not only are virtual business and healthy lifestyle success fueled by the same plan, but they also fuel each other. When you succeed at virtual business, you’ll be more relaxed with more leisure time to devote to your good health. And when you succeed at good health, you’ll be have more energy, focus, and self-confidence to kick-ass with your business!
Think I’m crazy? Am I dead-on? Please share your thoughts in the comments because that’s the only way we all learn and prosper.
Matt Gartland is a lifestyle entrepreneur at Untemplater and the healthy geek extraordinaire behind Healthy Lifestyle Design (HLD). Matt’s also a world traveler, coffee fanatic, web techie, avid reader, lifelong kid, and more. Follow Matt on Twitter and join the HLD Tribe on Facebook.
