Class Notes

PLEASE TAKE NOTE THAT THESE CLASS NOTES ARE UNEDITED AND TO BE USED A GUIDE FOR LEARNING AND NOT AS A “MANUAL” FOR EXAMS.

BALANCING PERSONAL RELATIONAL AND PROFESSIONAL LIFE

I.                

Course objective

This course aims at the development and management of one’s life. It is a personal organization development programme. It seeks to assist students to think through and develop an agenda for effective living now and after graduation in a world with competing demands on one’s life and time. In the end, it is expected that candidates will better manage their lives and exert positive impact on their families, workplaces, and the nation.

II.              

Content

i.       Discovering an “organizing principle” or “compass” for one’s life

ii.     The “successful failure syndrome”

iii.   The importance of “self” and personal development

iv.    Peak performance

v.      Strategic Leadership of self

vi.    Framework for life management

vii.  Managing personal, relational and professional life with reference to ones:

·       Spiritual life

·       Marriage life

·       Parenting and mentorship life

·       Social life

·       Physical life

·       Professional life

·       Personal finances

·       Intellectual life

viii.          Effective time management

ix.    Decision making

x.      Synergizing with others

xi.    Summary: “the purpose driven life”

III.            Expected Outcome

At the end of the programme, it is expected that participants will be equipped with the tools to organize their lives to perform at their peak. In particular, participants are expected to:

·       Develop an overarching principle around which to organize their lives

·       Have the capacity to strategically manage their lives

·       Proactively manage their lives

·       Have the tools to synergize with others

·       Live a purpose-driven life

IV.            

Facilitator

Stephen Adei

July 2010

Pentecost University College

  

ANNOTATED OUTLINE OF BALANCING PERSONAL RELATIONAL AND PUBLIC LIFE

Part 1: OVERVIEW

1.     Introduction

·       Life with a purpose

·       The importance of self

·       The curse of “The Average”

·       Peak performance

2.     Critical elements in purpose driven living

·       Organizing principle or rule of life

·       Life mission

·       The power of vision

·       Core values and personal ethic

·       SMART personal goals

·       Credible strategies

·       Simple, solid but seasonally adjusted plan

·       Managing oneself

·       Disciplined implementation

·       Synergy with strategic allies

·       Decision making

·       The “woomph of life”

·       The rest of the course

Part 2: LEADING ONESELF

3.     Organizing principle: the risk constant in purpose driven living

·       The challenge of a faulty “plum line” and “successful failure syndrome”

·       Identifying your rule of life

·       The role of the right organizing principle in Purpose Driven Living (PDL)

·       From the rule of life to core value and personal ethics

4.     Life with a mission

·       The power of purpose

·       Living your life backwards

·       The challenge of defining destiny in the midst of competing voices

·       Why Faith matters

·       What the Bible say about mission

·       Steps in articulating a personal mission

·       Sample purpose driven missions

5.     The power of vision

·       From Mission to vision: The important thin line

·       Long term vision versus “stage of life vision”

·       Characteristics of empowering long-term vision

·       Vision for seasons of life

-       Using R. Clinton’s Timeline

-       The foundation years

-       The capacity enhancing years

-       The age of career and family

-       The middle agers who rule the world or the leadership years

-       The mature years

-       After glow years

·       Secret of staying focused yet adapting to the season: Constant mission; Evaluating visions

6.     Not boxing in the air: The role of SMART GOALS

·       The essence of Goals

·       Mission-vision-role driven life goals

·       Keeping them SMART and how to set goals

·       Ten reasons why SMART goals make a difference

·       Time frame for goals (long term, medium term and operational goals or mini goals for quick wins

·       Implementing targets or sub-goals/operational indices

·       Using goals for M & E and quick win celebrations

7.     Personal strategic planning

·       Linking mission-vision-goals to action

·       The wheel of life

·       Setting goals and defining strategies to achieve them

·       Time frames, resource requirements and sacrifices

·       A tool for self management: The Self Management GRID

Part 3: MANAGING ONESELF

8.     Overview of self management

·       The challenge of self leadership: Implementing a strategic plan demanding efficient management of each department of life

·       Effective use of the “Wheel of Life” and “Self Management GRID”

·       Self management versus paranoia

9.     Managing your Personal Life I: Managing your physical life

·       The importance of adequate rest and better time management (see below)

·       Good eating habits and diet: Modified “Alleluiah Diet”

·       Exercise, exercise, exercise

·       Stress management

·       Mandatory periodic medical checkups

·       Doing what you enjoy or learning to enjoy what is before you.

·       Special midlife challenges with regards to menopause and “midlife crisis” or “Yaa Beeko syndrome”

·       Health and aging

·       Keeping healthy without being paranoid or following the fads

·       It does not cost money to be healthy

10.  Managing your Personal Life II: Managing your spiritual life

·       What you believe matters

·       The uniqueness of faith in Jesus

·       Being born again is not enough

·       Personal spirituality

·       Tools for managing your spiritual life

·       Christian faith and African worldview

11.  Managing your Personal Life III: Managing your finances

·       The importance of money

·       Signs of financial crises

·       Attitude is almost everything:

-       “The poverty mentality”

-       The danger of relying on luck and Juju, sorcery, and witchcraft prevalent in African attitude to poverty and wealth

-       “The Get-Rich-Quick mentality”

-       “Prosperity gospel” – dependency syndrome and OPM

-       “He who gathers wealth slowly grows rich”

·       How the rich think and act

·       ABCD principles of wealth creation, including how to live on less and living if more”

·       Planning for the big things of life:

-       Children education

-       House

-       Financial independence

-       Retirement

-       Tools for managing personal finances

- The Budget

-Cash Flow Analysis

- Net Worth Analysis

12.  Managing your Personal Life IV: Managing your intellectual life

·       Dangers of “graduating” or “finishing school “

·       Keeping a growing mind when the body stops growing

·       Avenues and tools for managing your intellectual life

·       Leaving an intellectual legacy

·       When what you have acquired through “Talent Training and Trenches “are no longer needed by you and your  family: pass it on

13.  Managing your Relational Life I: Managing your love life and marriage

·       Seven principles of marriage as God intended it

·       Communication: Marital “Tinkalo”

·       Flashpoints in marriage

·       Enemies of Christian marriages

·       Passionate monogamy for life

·       Widowhood, divorce, remarriage and polygamy in Africa

14.  Managing your Relational Life II: Managing your home and nuclear family

·       The cradle of leadership

·       Characteristics of a Christian home

·       Making your home a priority

·       How to train Godly kids in a bad world

-       The context

-       The hope

-       Principles of raising the Daniels of tomorrow

·       Your children’s children and you

·       Excursus on extended family

15.  Managing your public life I: Managing your social life

·       Public life coordinates:

-       Friendships

-       Community relations

-       Church or religious association

-       Work or profession (see below)

·       Managing your friendships with special regards to cultivating lasting and mutually enhancing relationships

·       Community relationships and social engagements

·       Religious involvements with special regards to Christians

16.  Managing your public life II: Managing your work life

·       The role work plays in our lives:

-       As ordained by God and intrinsic in our sense of wellbeing

-       Key identity

-       Source of livelihood for most people

-       Links to much social engagements

-       Main source of post retirement income

·       Principles of excellence in professional life

-       Attitude

-       Capacity

-       Skill and “sharpening the saw”

-       Diligence

-       Synergy and teamwork

·       Management and leadership

·       Managing the challenge of modern work:

-       In relation to family

-       In relation to wealth creation

-       Retirement planning

Part 4: EFFECTIVE TIME MANAGEMENT IN SELF LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT

17.  Introduction

·       Only one life “to live, to learn, to love and to leave a legacy”

·       God gives each of us 24/7/12/70 to 80 to plan on in Wesleyan-Luther Fashion

·       We have ALL THE TIME to do all that is important

·       What time management is and is not

·       Ten characteristics of time

·       The importance of not fitting into traditional and cultural mould

·       The keys to effective time management

-       Attitude

-       Prioritization (urgent versus important

-       Commitment

-       Discipline

-       Accountability

PRINCIPLES OF EFFECTIVE TIME MANAGEMENT

18.  Principle number 1: Commitment to make a difference

·       Commitment to mission, vision, goals and roles – ( a la Stephen Covey

19.  Principle number 2: Redeeming the Time

·       Making your priorities prior and saying no to non-prior activities

·       The urgent versus important

·       Basis of discrimination: Purpose

20.  Principle number 3: Defeating the Time Eating Monsters

·       The 28% of your life weekends, time eating monster of indiscipline, procrastination, following the crowd/tradition/culture, the tyranny of emergences, managing your boss, managing interruptions, inadequate rest, not figuring what you start, undue communality, lack of delegation and training other leaders etc.

21.  Principle number 4: Budgeting your Time and Making it practical

·       Long term strategic objectives and time management

·       The role of annual planner for meeting operation plans (also serves as monthly plan)

·       The power of mission-vision-goals and roles driven weekly calendar

·       Daily must do things

·       Planning for time for leisure, rest, family and God

22.  Principle number 6: “Smelling the cheese”

·       Discipline and commitment

·       Paying the price

·       “Smelling the Cheese”

·       The benefit of effective time management

·       Celebrating achievements

Part 5: CONCLUSION: LASTING LEGACY

23. Why many end up with theory and few practice principles of personal

       organization

·       Three challenges:

-       Cost of behavioral change

-       Tradition and culture

-       Lack of discipline

·       Attitude is almost everything

·       Confronting obstacles: Learning from the parable of the streams or river

·       Strengthen your resolve with:

-       Quick wins

-       Accountable system

-       Recruit disciples

·       Give your strategy the “woomph”

-       Have faith in God

-       Avail yourself of divine resources (The Holy Spirit, the Bible, Gods people and the Hope of well done from Jesus)

-       Don’t become a successful failure

·       Prepare “an agenda for taking charge”

·       Aim at a life of significance that leaves a lasting legacy

·       Leading  and Managing oneself is or “much ado about nothing”

·       Summary and way forward

BEGINNING OF CLASS NOTES


Why is it important to study about leading/managing oneself?

One tends to learn about managing and leading everything else in life, your business, you’re general activities, and many other things. But no one really learns about managing themselves. Managing your family, managing your personal finances (not a company’s). It is so important to learn to manage oneself, everything hangs on it, even though the tendency is to teach everything else except that. But how you manage yourself will affect everything you do.

Often times we find extremely successful people, presidents, CEO’s, musicians, people who have exceeded in their professional lives, but when we take a closer look at a few of them, we may find that they may be drug abusers, have bad family lives amongst other things. I call this the “Successful Failure Syndrome” (SFS). People who excel at one segment of their lives and fail miserably at another.

What you do and how you act has a great impact on the people who come into contact with you. For example, if Mary is a cheerful and hardworking woman, the lives of her family would be greatly enhanced compared to if she was a nagging, impatient and lazy human being. Even the bible tells us that it is better to live on the corner of a roof of a house, than to live with a nagging wife.

Without personal management, you tend to live “others” lives. You fit the mold your parents have created, society, peers, colleagues, family, but will never decide on your own path and stick to it.

Is BPRPL a legitimate course of study?

-        Each area is a sector of study, e.g. Health is catered for in the field of medicine, all of religion is centered about the care of the spiritual man. We are in university to gain an academic qualification to enhance our professional capability. Therefore each area studied in the BPRPL course is an area of study in universities.

-        The case is that the individual who is learning about all these areas themselves is not catered for. The individual is not necessarily taught how to achieve a balance between all the sectors of their life.

-        The objective of this course is to teach students to manage themselves, basically to integrate all sectors of their life efficiently without neglecting any area.

-        Another area of importance is that individuals rarely reach their full potential. Society emphasizes on the professional life, one can achieve great things in the professional scene but this is not enough. This sometimes leads to people becoming “Successful Failures”, people who at the end of their lives wish they could live it again differently. This course helps one to reach the full potential of all aspects of their lives and not only one.

The curse of the average

Never call yourself average. A Yugoslavian once told me “the average person is stupid”, I sat down to think of it and things dawned on me. Do you know the average income per capita in Ghana? Let me tell you, it is $ 1245.00 (at least according to the GDP after the 2010 rebasing), if you divide that by 12 do you think you could survive on it comfortably, I doubt it? What marks do you need to pass this course? 40%. Everywhere you go standards are set at the “average” level. Average IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH.

If you are reading these notes you are not an “average” Ghanaian. Only 6% of Ghanaians have achieved tertiary education. If you don’t learn how to manage yourself you will fall into the “curse of the average” which is synonymous to mediocrity. You will never achieve your full potential if you try and be average. Society as a generality defines the world by its average or mean. If you follow this standard you will find that you will always be average, which is not good enough.

Don’t compare yourself to anyone besides yourself. If you do you will always find someone better off than you to make you feel bad, or on the converse someone worse off than you to make you feel superior. You should be your own benchmark. And don’t forget that Christ is a Christians model

Peak Performance

Since the average is portrayed as good by society, you may find that you want to fit that mold. In 99.9% of the areas you are “good” at there will always be someone better than you. But if you don’t realize you own full potential you will never be fully satisfied with yourself.

No matter where you are if you cannot attain the average you will definitely find trouble. If you cannot achieve the average mark to pass this course, I will fail you. Achieving the average is important, but what is more important is exceeding the average and achieving your peak performance in all areas of your life.

But even reaching your peak performance now is not enough. Until you die there is always your “potential peak performance” which is above that of your current performance. To achieve your potential peak performance you usually require skill/competence expansion.

Capacity Development

Domain Expertise

Capacity Development is usually focused on what I call “domain expertise”, i.e. banking, engineering and medicine. This is important; the pursuit of domain expertise is required to stretch your mind and expanding your intellectual capacity. That is why it is so important to pursue tertiary education, it develops the mind to a degree which is difficult (but not impossible) to attain without tertiary or higher learning.

Catalytic Skills

But as a well-rounded person your personal capacity development should not be limited to your domain expertise. It is not enough. You also need to build catalytic skills. What are catalytic skills? They are the ability to do a myriad of other things that enable you to boost the efficiency of anything you are doing. Many people do not realize how important catalytic skills are. Without them you may find yourself lacking when compared to others with the same domain expertise skill set as you.

Management Skills

Leadership Skills

Strategic Management

Often time’s people are not able to associate relevant knowledge. What we will do in this course is not the “discovery” of new ways to do things. What we are doing is making use of existing tools and using them in innovative ways to better our quality of life.

·        Strategic Thinking & Planning

·        General Management

·        Time Management

·        Motivational Literature

·        Christianity: unless you know who you are, you are nothing much

This is often done for organizations, such as Businesses and Churches. We will apply these existing concepts to our own lives.  

10 Principles Underlying Effective Personal Management

1)      Need for an “organizing principle” or as Stephen Covey puts it, a “true north”.

a.      The organizing principle can be denoted by a compass. A compass is a magnetic device used by navigators to give direction. Due to the magnetization of the earth’s poles the compass always points to the “magnetic north” (close to the geographical North Pole). As magnetism directs the arrow to face the same direction at all times on a compass, your organizing principle will direct all your life’s choices.

b.      As a Christian our “true north” is our God. And to make things easier, we can look at the best model, Christ. The term WWJD or “what would Jesus do?” is a great guiding concept, it makes life simpler, when you are faced with an important choice (not like what will I eat for breakfast) all you need to do is look at your organizing principle and go by it. <<everyone must come next week with their organizing principle>>

2)      Focus and Prioritization.

a.      Few people organize themselves well by doing everything. Also, very few people make a lasting impact by doing numerous main activities at the same time. This does not mean you will focus on only one thing in your life, it means that at every stage of your life there are one or two things that must be focused on (usually at the expense of other things).

3)      Personal Ethics and Values.

a.      Consistency of behavior, being dependable, being honest, truthful and trustworthy. This mostly boils down to the concept of integrity. This will aid you to no end once you have a well-established integrity.

4)      You’re Attitude.

a.      Positive thinking. Often times in Ghana we have been trained to always see the dark side of things. This is often times because of the “promise and fail” of our political leaders, family and friends. We need to overcome this negativity and dwell on the more positive aspects of situations. This does not mean you should be blissfully optimistic and carefree. But rather looking at REAL opportunities and possibilities. Many things start with attitude, and then continue with real hard work.

5)      Building your Capacity.

a.      What you can achieve is based on your capacity. Do not restrict your capacity to what you “will be paid for”. Like in the bible, and the miracle of the oil, the oil kept flowing until there were no jars left to fill, and then it stopped. You can achieve up to your capacity and not more, I think it is better to have a larger capacity.

6)      Good Habit Formation.

a.      Good habit formation is key to making your life much easier. Habits like good and regular eating, getting enough sleep, reading the word of God and others once acquired will be with you for life, and you will be able to maintain int with very little effort.

7)      Excellence Mentality

a.      The difference between and “A” and a “B” at the closest point is only one mark.

b.      Do not settle for anything less than excellence in your own mind. Make it your nature. Do not do it because of what others are expecting but rather because it is an integral part of you.

8)      Diligence

a.      Antology: Go to the ant you sluggard, consider his ways and be wise, he has no overseer or manger yet …

b.      Whatever your hand find to do, do it with all you’re might as serving the Lord your God …

9)      Self-Discipline

a.      Your discipline should come from within and not from without. As you rise in life (whether in business, family, etc.) external checks become less and less and unless you check yourself you may find that you land in very compromising and difficult positions.

10  Faith in the One True God

a.      For a Christian this is the most important, do not be deceived that it is the last in the list, it is there so that when you finish reading it, it will be the first you remember.

b.      Have faith in God. Plan, but don’t forget to give God the room to work as well. Sometimes God has the tendency to displace the best laid plans

To equip participants to live today with their long term in mind, so that in the end they will be able to fulfill their long term vision. To inspire oneself to be purpose driven and also to make sure that the blind spots of your life are reduced.

Johari window

         

The more “intentional” you are, the more you start discovering more about yourself.

IS BPRPL a legitimate area of study?

Every part of our lives is an area of serious academic study. Even your own health is a vast area of academic study, if you don’t think so what are doctors, nurses, dieticians. Even your thoughts and thinking patters are an area of study; your spirituality is also an area of study, these days pastors go to “school” to learn before they start preaching. Therefore, the improvement of oneself is a serious and legitimate area of study which will greatly enhance one’s life if followed well.

Sayings

John Maxwell – The first person to lead is you.

Plato – The first and the best victory is to conquer self.

Strategic thinkers

-          They ask the “why” and “why not”

-          They think multivariate

-          They look for synergy between things

-          They think long term

-          Think holistically

Managing oneself

-          Create a vision

-          You must have a mission

-          Personal ethics and values

-          SWOT analysis

The wheel of life

First up, personal  SWOT analysis. Use the wheel of life to do a personal assessment of yourself, grade yourself from 1 to 10 on the spokes of the wheel. The size of your wheel is important as well as its shape. You can’t drive on triangles.

Vision

There are two types; Creative Vision and the Vision of Being. Creative Vision is about what you want to “do”. Things like “I want to build a school”, or “I want to be a CEO of a large company” but this vision alone sometimes leads to one becoming a “successful failure”. The second one is the Vision of Being, it is about what you want to BECOME.

Purpose in Life

Raison d’etre – “the reason for living”

Companies that are successful are companies with a clear purpose. Many people think that the reason for life is success, thus many people are driven my money, fear and culture and many other things besides what God want s them to do – Rick Warren. Life is a Trust, Test and Temporary assignment. Someone created us, and he created us for a purpose and to identify our purpose we must know our creator, God.

An ultimate goal in life is to bring glory to God, so our greatest achievement would be to love God, love one another, and telling others about God. I think that the general purposes for life are as follows;

The three-fold purpose of life

My premise is that we were created by God, and therefore our purpose can be learned only by revelation from God. Remember that the bible is God’s revelation to us.

1.       To glorify God. ….. for this is the whole duty of man ….. love your God with all your heart ….

2.       To work for the establishment of the kingdom of God on earth

3.       To prepare for heaven

Your destination determines your route. Knowing your destination beforehand will allow you to reach it. After this when you articulate your personal purpose for your life out of this generic purpose we call that a “Personal Mission”.

In managing and leading yourself your personal mission is your general mission particularized. You must be careful however not to spend your whole life searching for your vision. Your personal mission is likely to become clearer evolutionary, as in it will develop over time.

Walk faithfully with God and your personal mission will be revealed to you. But when you are walking

-          What can I personally do to glorify God?

-          If I had all that I needed in life, what would I do first?

-          What would I like to achieve at the end of my life?

-          What would you write on your gravestone?

-          In one sentence write what you think your purpose in life as a whole now then,

-          Purpose for the immediate future (10-15 years)

Your personal mission is the fulfillment of what God said to us in the beginning of creation, we were made in his image and commanded to be fruitful and multiply … not have a short history; he lived ... and he died

The value of purpose driven living

Purpose driven living gives meaning to your life. It also simplified your life. As a result it helps you to focus your life. It motivates you internally. It prepares your life for eternity.

-          It helps you to focus

-          It helps in decision making

-          It gives synergy to your life

-          It helps you to avoid being a successful failure

-          It helps you not to miss your destiny

Don’t go through life without seeking your purpose and capturing it in a personal mission statement, because if you find the mission of your life it will give you direction. You will experience fulfillment and you will not feel tempted to envy others.

Values, Beliefs & Culture

You can achieve your financial objectives by stealing it, or by hard work. What’s the difference? Values. What drives the process of achieving your objectives, are your values.

Culture affects progress. In the olden days the Arabs were far more technologically advanced than the western world. Their culture that aided them then, acted as a stop plug, their progress halted and the western world soon caught up and surpassed them.

The Roman Catholic churches before the reformation also used culture to halt spiritual progress. They prevented people from reading the bible themselves, and controlled the people through the “forgiveness of sins”

Values are the reasons for doing what we do. When your values are “wrong” for your vision, you are in trouble.

What are values? “They are the un-compromising, un-debatable truths that drive and direct our behavior. They give us the reasons we do things” – and as such they are restrictive … they place boundaries around behavior. When those values are personalized, they become our personal ethics. And when we practice them, they become our morality.

How or where do we get our values from?

1)      Culture basically constitutes the belief values and norms in a society, they are transmitted from generation to generation, and is extremely powerful. People are affected b culture from birth and few are able to fight against it. High-self-monitors are able to be in a culture but distance themselves from it.

2)      Education. The school system affects the way people think and reason. This affects how they interpret their values and act on them.

3)      The Media

4)      Religion

There are three schools of thought on values. There are people who believe in absolute values, the standards are non-debatable.

Another school of though is the relativity of values, everything is based on opinion and perspective, many modern beliefs rely on relativity. Hedonism falls under this category; it is based on “what feels good”.

The last school of though is situational ethics, everything depends on the situation. If you rely on situational ethics, everything can be justified.

Christians have absolute values with wisdom necessary for evaluation of situations and application.

Is there a hierarchy of values?

Yes I think so. Some values are absolute and others can be weighed according to situations. I feel that there is no direct hierarchy but that in application some values carry more weight than others.

You should have a single rule that can sum up your values. This makes it easy and interesting to use it as a guideline in all situations. For example, for a Christian you can start with “the love of God and the love of neighbor”.

Managing your work life

The importance of work

-          Work is intrinsic value to us for we were created to work (Genesis 1:26-28)

-          In work we have a major opportunity to express our being made in the image of God; to be creative

-          In the world, work largely defines our identity: e.g. as a farmer, engineer, etc.

-          For the majority of people, work provides the main source of livelihood

-          Working environment is important for character formation and testing

-          To ordinary people, almost all our contribution to the wider world is through work

-          Work and the workplace gives us the opportunity to build legacies

-          The workplace is a major place for socialization

-          The workplace is a place to learn governance, management and leadership

-          Work is also a place to witness – be a light and salt to the earth and make disciples for Jesus. Work is Ministry

-          The workplace can be a source of temptation; bribery, sexual immorality, compromise, abuse of power, etc. and we need to be able to stand against it

Principles to guide us at work

-          Attitude is almost everything. Have a positive attitude to work or be miserable for life

-          Acquire the capacity to do your work well and expeditiously

-          Develop a good work ethic – punctuality, diligence, fidelity, honesty, industry, integrity, etc.

-          Plan your work

-          Never work for pay only. See work as an opportunity for self-realization; as a means of service to others and worship. Work is ministry

-          Look to your wages/salary as seed to create wealth

-          Acquire habits that foster high productivity and joy at work

-          Learn to relate to others and work in a team – synergize. “No on succeeds on their own”

-          Be creative, innovative and courageous

-          Always place your work within God’s plan for you

-          Balance personal, relational and “work” life

-          Have faith in God

Managing your physical life

Introduction

People over the years have had different attitudes to the physical body; for Gnostics it is neglect and abuse to the almost self-worship of modern people

-          We are spirit, soul and BODY

-          While the sinful self and its desire since the Fall was against the desires of the spirit (Galatians 5:16-22), nonetheless the redeemed body is not only the host of the human spirit and soul but the “temple of the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 6:19)

-          The state of our physical health positively impacts our spiritual life

-          The physical life, like most other aspects of life is in our power to manage well or pay a heavy price for its mismanagement. All this without being paranoid or aimlessly following fads.

Ways of managing our physical life well

Inner Peace

The key to your health is inner peace (Douglass) and that comes by being reconciled to God through the atonement of Jesus; living at peace with your neighbors and accepting yourself as “fearfully (uniquely) and wonderfully made”. Have a joyful disposition to life. “Laughter is the best medicine”

Manage Stress

-          Avoid worrying (Mathew 6:25-34); God, and not you, is in charge of the world. “Be still and know that I am God” (Isaiah 46:10)

-          Don’t take on more than you can cope. Learn to say no!

-          Prioritize and discipline yourself to good time management

-          Try to identify sources of pressure and deal with them or avoid them if you can

-          Plan ahead. Effective personal organization reduces stress

-          Have faith in God

-          Exercise

Exercise, Exercise, Exercise

The concern here is not about expensive tools, clubs, etc. The exercise you need to keep health is simple. A 30 minute a day, 3-5 times a week regime of any of these activities will keep you in shape provided the next three sections we will discuss are in place

-          30 minutes of brisk walking/jogging

-          30 minutes of swimming

-          30 minutes of cycling

Eat “Well”

-          Limit intake of food; carbohydrates, protein, etc. Moderation is the key. Most people will be healthier with one main meal a day with salads and fruits to fill in the traditional three square meals. Moderation and balance are the key factors

-          At any stage the more vegetables and fruits the better

-          Limit processed food if at all possible

-          Avoid the “deadly intakes” of sugar, caffeinated beverages, soft drinks, fats, etc.

-          Don’t eat at wrong times (in between meals), late at night etc.

-          Eat according to plan

Medical Examination

-          Don’t go to see the doctor only when sick

-          Younger people should do a medical exam once every two years (at least) and when over 40 annually

-          Learn to understand your body to know when there is a malfunction and watch for danger signals

“Seek proper rest and sleep” (Psalms 127:2, Matthew 6:30-32)

-          Most adults need 6 – 8 hours of sleep each day. The latter still leaves you with 16 hours of wakeful time

-          Form a good sleeping habit and discipline yourself to it

Accept and Compensate for Limitations

-          Accept the limitations of age, growth; endure reasonable pain and accept the inevitability of death and plan for it

Have Faith in God

-          Faith in God and in Christ Jesus is therapeutic

-          Research shows that people who go to church have less worries and live longer

-          God cares for you

Conclusion

Our physical life on earth is as important as the rest, though the spirit and soul must rule the body