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Financial Journey 11 Ways that Exercising Can Improve Your Financial Life
Have you ever
experienced days when you aren’t too motivated to follow your exercise plan?
It happens to me more frequently than I would like to admit.
I do find it much easier to exercise when I have a motivational tape to
listen to, or when I use it for a personal brainstorming session. More...
One day, I decided to brainstorm ideas for my next column. Since I was exercising, I started to think about all of the different ways exercising can improve your financial life. Take a look at what I came up with. Exercising: 2 Enhances creativity – whenever I find myself really stuck on a project or solving a problem, exercising has a magical effect. Going for a long walk, a swim, or hopping onto the elliptical trainer will help me get ‘unstuck.’ I’ve started exercising with a pencil and paper in my pocket so I can capture the ideas that come to me. 3 Improves brain functioning – not only will you enhance creativity but you will develop much greater mental clarity. Solutions to problems and decisions to difficult situations often become much clearer either during or after exercise. 4 Increases your stamina and energy – you might ask how this improves your financial situation. With increased stamina and energy you become more productive and have the energy to do things that will reduce expenses, as well as begin new endeavors to increase income. 5 Improves quality of sleep – when we aren’t well rested we become more accident prone and much less productive. These will affect your financial situation as accidents can be costly, and higher productivity leads to more opportunities to earn income. Also, when we are sleep deprived we tend to make poor spending choices. Resourcefulness is fairly non-existent when you are lacking sufficient sleep and many of our great ideas for saving or earning money come through our personal resourcefulness. 6 Increases your self-discipline – self-discipline is like a muscle that we strengthen. Once you make it stronger through exercise, it will magically carry over into other aspects of your life and you will be applying self-discipline to your spending plan, your work, etc. 7 Improves health, strengthens bones, builds muscles – in the short term, improving your health will decrease doctor visits. In the long term, you are preventing maladies such as a bad back and/or osteoporosis. This can save you many dollars throughout the years. 8 Helps overcome inertia – similar to increasing your self-discipline muscle, when you overcome inertia to exercise then you will follow through on other things that you might have procrastinated before. Procrastinating can cost money – whether it is putting off paying bills, repairing and maintaining automobiles or household appliances, getting organized, creating a spending plan or a retirement plan, or following through on a great money making idea you have. Once you have overcome inertia to exercise, you have set the tone for the day. Each day builds your life! 9 Develops Goal Setting Capabilities – goal setting is an invaluable strategy for saving money and following through on your financial plans. When you follow through on your exercise goals, you are strengthening your abilities to set goals in all aspects of your life. This is a major key to improving your current financial situation as well as any other area of your life that isn’t where you want it to be currently. 1 Decreases grocery and clothing budgets – When you exercise, you generally watch what you put into your body. The cost of buying junk food decreases and since your size won’t keep expanding, you save lots of money not having to buy clothes! Have you ever been in that situation where you are buying clothes as the weight is increasing, and then buying them again when you are losing weight? Wouldn’t it be much more cost effective to keep one set of clothes in the closet that will always fit? 1 Improves self-esteem and self-confidence – it follows that when your self-esteem is high you smile more, carry yourself more confidently, and project yourself better. The world views you differently. I like the old saying, “When you smile, the whole world smiles with you.” People will want to be around you and work with you. You are much more likely to have positive responses to your requests. Believe me, all of these positive attributes will help you in your ability to save money and to increase your income! Next time you are putting off exercising, just think of all the great benefits you will enjoy and get going! Nike has a saying that is worth using – “Just Do It!” You’ll be happy you did.
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Copyright © 2005 by Karen Kuebler. All rights reserved. Want more money-saving tips? Get a FREE Subscription to our monthly newsletter!
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