Note: Written on a ship on the Danube River bound for Prague, Czech Republic:
Imagine a 3×3 wellness grid:
On the X-axis, we have three dimensions of mental health:
1) Happiness – The amount of joy we experience;
2) Loyalty – How much satisfaction and pride we feel;
3) Energy – The amount of inspiration and excitement we experience;
On the Y axis, we have three dimensions of wellness in life:
1) Personal life – What we do to develop ourselves as individuals;
2) Personal life – What we do to maintain, expand and deepen our relationships;
3) Working life – What we do in order to grow and succeed in the work we do.
Using this wellness grid, we have a handy weekly report card that enables us to track how well we are maximizing our quality of life over time. We also have a framework for tracking synergies in our lives: the degree to which improving one area of life creates benefits for other areas. Naturally, we can track how setbacks in one area of life affect others.
If we are consciously working on the nine boxes of the wellness grid, what we are really working on is intentionality: expanding our free will. The idea is to live life in a state where we are fully awake, and not operating on autopilot. We maximize our trading psychology when we maximize our abilities to live intentionally. The biggest enemy of mentality is not stress; It is the absence of luxury. We all need routines to live life efficiently, but when all of life becomes a collection of routines, we are no longer fully alive—and we fail to thrive. Ideally, each week, we push ourselves beyond our comfort levels in all nine areas of the Wellness Grid.
In-depth reading:
Addressing your problems will never improve your life
Gurdjieff, Turtles and Trade
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