Have you had your wake-up call?

Today I chatted to a man in the steam room at my gymn. He was probably in his mid 50’s and making a supreme effort to get fit. He told me that he had moved house a year ago and changed his life style. He had lost a good deal of weight, changed his diet and taken up exercising in the gymn. I couldn’t resist asking him what the trigger for this change in lifestyle had been.

I wasn’t surprised when the answer was immediate and clearly remembered. He told me that last Christmas he had contracted a virus which lead to a severe chest infection and he had been frightened by the length of time it had taken him to recover. All credit to him that he had taken steps to rectify the situation and as he sat in the steam room he appeared physically very fit.

However, I wasn’t so sure about the level of fitness of his mental state. OK his wake up call had spurred him into some physical action but the conversation continued with an outpouring of everything that was wrong with his life, the government, society and anything else he could think of. He blamed his business for the stress he had put himself under, the government for not providing the ‘right type’ of employees for him and the Chancellor of the Exchequer for taking all his money in taxes. He ended the conversation with ‘I don’t know – the youth of today!’ I was tempted to ask him whether he had ever been young but I refrained.

So often we read of and indeed meet people who have achieved success in their lives despite the appalling circumstances of their youth, or the terrible accident they had which left them incapacitated or the life threatening illness they managed to defy. People like Milton Erickson, William Tan and Ronan Tynan have all betrayed the laws of possibility in the achievement stakes – the one thing they all had in common was the ability to ‘think’ their way to success.

What happens for those people who never have a wake up call? What happens to those who have a wake up call but only do half the job? Will my friend in the steam room realise that a healthy mind is as important as a healthy body?

Why wait for a wake up call anyway? Surely success is something everyone is capable of – whether its in relationships, career and/or health – it just takes some thought.

Pat Hutchinson – Quadrant 1 International