On the Creating Your Best Self Podcast our approach to personal development takes a balanced approach. When trying to live a life of success and happiness most people focus on one or two things, typically though they only see success as monetary in nature.
That's understandable. Most people believe that success means your bank account has a certain number of 0's and commas. While monetary success IS a part of living a successful life, it's not the ONLY part.
We've known many people who chase the dollar only to find out that once they get to the top, they aren't any more fulfilled than they were when they were at the bottom. Those that are, understand the 4 Pillars of Living Your Best Life.
They understand that true happiness requires the balancing of four specific pillars of success.
- Monetary Success
- Relational Success
- Health Success (mental and physical)
- Spiritual Success (doesn't have to mean religion)
What Does it Mean to Be Unbalanced?
We like to think of the 4 Pillars of Living Your Best life as the legs of a chair. When you have four legs it's easy to sit in the chair, you don't have to worry about falling over. However, it's when you start to remove those legs that things start to get a bit shaky.
Let's say that you work hard & make good money, that you're healthy, and you feel connected & grounded (spirituality) but the relationships in your life suck. Remove a leg.
Now, you're sitting in a chair that is meant to have four legs but now only has three, with one leg missing from a corner. Yes, you can still sit in the chair, but things get a bit wobbly when you lean to one side. Because of that, you shift your weight so that the other three legs are left to support your weight. This puts strain on both you and the other three legs.
Now, let's imagine that you lose another chair leg. You still make good money and you're still in good health, but your relationships still suck and now you no longer feel grounded or connected. What does that leave you with?
A two-legged chair.
Imagine that you're sitting in a chair that used to have four legs and now you only have two. How hard would it be to sit in that chair? Yes, it can be done but you would have to continually balance yourself and would have to stay consistently vigilant or you'll fall over.
As you can imagine this puts a tremendous amount of stress on those two legs and on yourself. You can't ever rest because that's all you have. Now imagine if things got tough at work and you couldn't go to the gym anymore and you found yourself eating fast food at your desk most of the time. You had to take your eye off your health because your job required it.
This is the same as trying to sit in a one-legged chair. Yes, it can be done but not without a ton of effort and control. Wouldn't it be easier if you had all four legs?
Wouldn't life be better if you also had your health, amazing relationships, and that you felt connected both internally and externally?