Enjoyment over perfection

Enjoy your time while being healthy

When we aim for a certain goal we often forget why we are going for it. Trying to achieve a healthy lifestyle isn’t a reason to scare us from enjoying life. If we think we are perfect we aim for always being on point and refusing anything that isn’t in line with our goals.

Allthough picking the healthy option all the time may bring you faster to your goal, your enjoyment will decrease and the possibility of achieving your end goal may be at risk. In a perfect world you would never take a step back. However taking two steps forward, one backwards is still progress. No one is perfect and aiming for it is impossible. You are allowed to refuse that one ice cream, but what about the next one? If you still enjoy life this way it’s fine, however if you are sacrificing your enjoyment you might want to rethink what to refuse and how often.

Without the element of enjoyment, it is not worth trying to excel at anything. – Magnus Carlsen

Like world’s best chest player Magnus Carlsen claims trying to be your best in something is only feasable if you enjoy it. The same thing goes for becoming healthy. If you want to become healthy the best way to achieve is to enjoy the path you are taking. Agreed if you are just starting out and have to come from far you might not enjoy the start. The art is to experiment with activities and posibilities to start implementing joy on the way. This can be to search for food you enjoy, a pleasant sport or finding someone to join you on your path. If you choose the last option remember to not solely focus on them. If they quit there should be some motivation left to continue.

When people say it’s very hard to impossible to become healthy the reasoning behind this is that they, or their peers, try to force them to take a different path. For becoming healthy you have to be ready to do what is needed, yet without forgetting to live and to enjoy life. To enjoy life doesn’t mean to eat fast food 5 times a week, neither does it mean to sit in front of the television every day for 6 hours at a time. Enjoying life means to not sacrifice that much that you are no longer willing to continue your path. Find something that is enjoyable for you, yet will start to bring you to your goal.