So, so far we’ve discussed the first of the four quadrants to establishing a foundation that’ll give you the best chance of accomplishing everything that you’ve ever wanted. The four quadrants being physical, mental, spiritual, and monetary. We covered physical in the last section, which to me serves as the base and the easiest starting ground for getting your life on track, and so today we’ll cover mental.
Now mental covers a wide swath of territory. By mental I also mean things like emotions, mental heath, as in being free from mental diseases, but also things like creativity and having a sharp mind and even wit. As you can see mental covers a lot of territory, including mindset which we discussed in the very first part.
I’ll try to cover as much ground as I can as succinctly as I can but as with all things what you discover or learn here will never be enough. You must use it as a starting off point to go and learn and expand more on your own. So without any further ado, let’s get started.
The Many & Varied Facets Of Mental Wellness & Health
Like I mentioned above, the mental aspect covers many different areas. I think the easiest to start with is mental health. We live in a time where being free of any mental diseases or ailments is extremely rare, the same could be said of physical diseases or ailments, as the two are connected at the hip.
One of the best things you can do for your mental health is live a healthy life. Meaning eat the right foods, those that are nutrient dense, as well as keep yourself protected from stress and exercise. But we covered all of that. Beyond that you have to look at other factors when it comes to mental health.
You have to look at mental patterns. Most of us get our mental patterns from our parents or the world around us, neither of which is always a good choice. However we do have the power to change these mental patterns. Whether it’s negative thoughts or being attracted to wrong types of people. And the first step to this is knowledge.
Learn all that you can about hard mental health, stay away from the psychobabble and look at what actually works. Look at your family history and see what patterns may be repeated with you. Research them. Does alcoholism affect you? Did it affect others in your family? And so on and so forth.
This also applies to things like negative thinking patterns, limiting beliefs, not having a growth mindset, and so much more. Research how successful people think and view the world, what they think about things, and what separates the mindset and beliefs of the successful from the unsuccessful.
These three routes here. Diet and exercise, studying mental health from a more clinical standpoint, and then looking at it from a “success” standpoint are three keys that’ll help you tremendously to achieve mental wellness and covers a lot of areas.
A Word About Creativity
Creativity is one of the most underrated skills, talents, or whatever you want to call it in existence. Many see creativity as a superfluous thing. They think “Oh, you’re creative, that’s nice.” but think ‘Too bad you never got any real talents that’ll actually help you in life’. But the fact of the matter is creativity is important. From everything to mental health to success in business.
When we don’t use our creativity we lose part of ourselves. I think we’ve all seen where things like painting or sketching have been used with tremendous success to help those suffering from serious mental ailments as well as general stress relief. Humans were meant to be creative and to truly have full mental health this is something we must take into account and address.
Find a way to express your creativity. Not something you have to do every day but just something that uses this innate human talent. It could be something more ‘typical’ like painting, writing fiction, or sketching or it could be something like woodworking, adding onto your home, or whatever else. Some people go out into the woods and build stuff. Use some creativity and find a way to include creativity in your life. Think outside the box.
Humor, Wit, & A Sharp Mind
There are other tools that I think lead to having true mental wellness. For example having a sense and understanding of humor. Many think humor to be even more superfluous than creativity, yet it is also a fundamental part of human wellness. If you’re not laughing and smiling at all, ever, then you don’t have good mental health or wellness. Learn to see the lighter side of things.
Take a class on comedy or read a book on the subject. Learn to view this twisted world through a comic lens, sometimes that’s the best, if not only, way to stay truly sane. Learn to laugh, because again, without it you can never be truly well. Same with wit. Though I can’t tell you to do X, Y, and Z and you’ll have wit, think about it.
Comedy will help with this. It sharpens your mind and helps you see things in different ways. It develops wit, mental resiliency, and sharpens the mind. You don’t have to become a stand up comedian or a professional but having a basic grasp of this is fundamental to having good mental health and something that so many seem to lack.
Practical Measures To Achieving Mental Health & Wellness
We covered a lot of general principles and tactics but I want to bring it down to specific actions that you can do and do today to help you achieve mental health. There are a few that come to mind right away and that I think every man should do. First off, if you’re serious about success, being the best that you can be, mental sharpness and health, and pretty much anything that we’ve talked about, then you need to read.
Read, read, read, and read some more. Books should be just as much a part of your life as exercise is. Books do to the mind what exercise does to the body. Combine reading with writing and you have the most potent mix of mind development possible. Now naturally the next question to ask is read what and write what?
Read whatever you can get your hands on. I recommend having 2-3 non fiction books you’re reading at any given time. Make a specific time to read every day and stick to it. Doesn’t have to be much, start with a single page or two and build the habit then go from there.
With writing, again, write whatever you want. Write out your problems at night and the next morning, first thing when wakeup, write out a few paragraphs on how to solve them. Write articles on how to do things, teaching is one of the best ways to learn something yourself. Write poetry, prose, song lyrics, whatever. You don’t have to write every day but I’d recommend making it a part of your life.
Puzzles are also good. I don’t just mean the kind you put together on a table but various things in life. Life presents you with puzzles all the time. Math itself is a puzzle in a way. But also things like how to acquire more clients, how to create a opening with your jab against this particular sparring partner at this time, how to gain muscle when meat is getting more and more expensive.
And so on and so forth.
The Ocean Of Mental Wellness
There’s a lot to cover here. We didn’t dive deep into anything but we covered a lot of bases. Remember that this isn’t meant to be the end all, be all when it comes to to mental wellness or anything else. This is meant to be starting points that you can use in your own life to better it. Nothing less and nothing more. If you’re not sure where to start with all this then start reading.
They say reading is a superpower and I’d agree with that. Without books I really don’t know where I’d be in life, nowhere really. Books have been the single greatest thing that has impacted my life. More than anything else I can say that whatever success I have achieved has more to do with books than any other single factor.
That’s how powerful reading is.
If you’d like advice beyond this or a more detailed guide you can sign up for my coaching program. Regardless I hope the information here helps you and as always, thanks for reading.
-Charles Sledge
