Finding our healthy alignment is essential to thriving. We’ve all experienced the side effects of living out of alignment. We may feel like a success at work, but come home to a strained relationship. Perhaps we have fantastic relationships, but our basic self-care is neglected as we selflessly serve the ones we love. Maybe we crush our fitness goals at the gym, but clock in at an unfulfilling job each workday. We all lose our balance sometimes, but it can be difficult to find our center if we remain in this unaligned state for too long. Healthy alignment is unique to us and our season of life. Although there’s no universal formula, we can use three checkpoints to quickly rectify imbalances in alignment:
- Condition: overall health of our spirit, mind, and body
- Connection: depth and quality of our relationships
- Contribution: meaningful ways we give back to the world
When we get these three checkpoints right, it’s much easier to access our infinite potential and fulfill our transcendent purpose.
Condition
Condition is the overall health of our spirit, mind, and body. Ignoring the well-being of any of these pieces for too long will deplete the energy we need to build the life we want. Our condition creates the foundation on which we build our life so we must get this part right. Optimizing condition is a marathon, not a sprint. If we are alive, our work is not yet complete so we must commit daily to refine, optimize, and improve. In the past, I would become trapped in the perfectionist cycle of inevitable failure and burnout as I fell short of nearly impossible targets. Everything changed when I discovered setting baseline and peak targets. I utilized the rigidity of my baseline targets to protect my progress and the flexibility of my peak targets to motivate sustainable growth.
There are a lot of habits that I’ve stacked into practice over the years. I review and recommit to my Peak Condition targets every morning. Most days I can accomplish the peak targets, but I focus on my top three to thrive (baseline targets) on the list when my plan begins to implode or I’m feeling suboptimal. Even if my day falls apart, I feel accomplished if I hit these three practices: reading my Bible, Aligning and recommitting to my vision, and completing a 20-minute Workout. I prioritize these core practices early in the morning. It’s easy to protect this time once we experience the peace and joy of filling our cup before the rest of the world makes its demands of us. Set your peak targets, identify your baseline, and celebrate the days you accomplish either. Those tiny wins create a healthy condition on which we can build deep connections and make meaningful contributions.
Connection
Connection is the quality and depth of our relationships. Living in a community that supports, encourages, and challenges one another is more fun. It’s a natural desire to share the joy of success and soften the heartbreak of failure with the people who matter most. Experiences are enriched through the presence of our loved ones. Building extraordinary relationships requires us to put our love into action. We must show up consistently as the present, dependable, and vulnerable friends we want to have. Doing what we say we are going to do is a lost art in a culture led by feelings. Schedule that dinner or coffee date, honor that commitment, and enjoy that time to connect without phones or other distractions. Our full, distraction-free presence is one of the best gifts we can give our loved ones.
Now, let’s address the difficult relationships. Enforce healthy boundaries and sever ties when your spiritual, mental, or physical health is at stake. Make those difficult decisions and release the guilt. Toxic relationships aside, to be human is a little messy. We are imperfect people living in a broken world doing our best with what we have been given. We are called to walk in love and live at peace with all, as far as it depends on us. Next time we find ourselves disappointed by the actions of others, we can regain our center by focusing on what’s in our control. We can choose to live with radical kindness, grace, and mercy. We must choose our response before we face difficult situations and difficult people based on our character, not our emotions. We can pre-commit to being un-offendable (as much as possible) and pre-decide to forgive the offenses that reach our hearts. Realize that allowing others’ actions to determine our behavior relinquishes the last of our human freedoms, to choose our response. We find freedom and peace when we treat people with love and respect as a reflection of our character, instead of theirs. Finding healthy alignment with our condition and connection fuels our desire to make our contribution to the world.
Contribution
Contribution is our work, and how we give back to the world in a meaningful way. We are each created on purpose for a purpose. Two of our greatest contributions are pursuing our calling by discovering and carrying out our unique mission(s) and fulfilling our purpose by expanding the bounds of our best selves.
Discovering my calling was a slow and challenging endeavor. Some people’s passions point them toward their life’s work. My passions, if they could be called that, seemed to lack the depth and momentum to create confidence. Settling on one course seemed a sorrowful and irrevocable loss of the other possibilities. Although I knew early on that I wanted to be a better version of my previous self each day, I lacked a clear ribbon to pull my contribution together. My contribution felt a little more like a tangle of multicolored threads. Finally, I resolved to give my best to whatever I worked on. What I didn’t realize at the time was that all those seemingly unrelated experiences and challenges were equipping me with exactly what I would need for my work in the future.
So what do we do if we can’t hear our calling? We can work diligently creating good from what’s in front of us with what we have where we are. We also must create moments of quiet solitude for reflection. We can fill our schedule with so many ‘good’ things that we drown out the faint prompts of ‘exceptional’ calling. The planning and execution come naturally, but I’m the kind of person who needs a reminder to dream and play, so I started to pay attention when something lit up my senses. As I made time and space to reflect I noticed when I felt truly engaged, fulfilled, and purposeful. As I continue to put myself in the path of more and more of these experiences, the common threads are revealed. I love witnessing others discover what’s most important, dismantle limiting beliefs, and expand the boundaries of their potential. Sharing my beliefs, encouragement, and questions cultivates my faith, courage, and resolve. My path may not be tied together with a thick ribbon, but I can now see how all those little threads guide me to a life of meaningful contribution.
Back to the Basic
It’s time to revisit the basics when we feel out of alignment. I’m not convinced that it’s possible for us to be in perfect balance every moment, nor should that be our goal. Life doesn’t work that way. Some seasons prompt us to tend more to our condition, others require us to contribute longer hours to our work, while other seasons challenge us to carry burdens alongside the connections we love. Through each season it’s important to take an inventory of the three checkpoints to prevent any piece of our precious lives being neglected for too long. Here’s how to do a quick check-in.
Rate each checkpoint on a scale of 1-10 (be sure to leave room for growth in your evaluation):
- Condition: overall health of our spirit, mind, and body
- Connection: depth and quality of our relationships
- Contribution: meaningful ways we give back to the world
Pick one checkpoint that needs attention and determine one tiny step you can take today to improve it. If it’s a habit, create a simple method to track progress. A habit tracker can be as simple as printing a monthly calendar with an “X” notating each day the habit is completed. For one-time steps, make it actionable, tiny, and immediate. Put it on your calendar, set reminders, enlist support, and identify inevitable obstacles.
When we consistently take action on what’s most important now we create a healthy alignment from which we can make meaningful contributions, deepen our connections, and optimize our condition. The ability to quickly find our alignment is how we create the time and space to pursue and fulfill our transcendent purpose. We’ll discuss that next!
Faith Encouragement:
- What is one thing I can do to improve my [condition/connection/contribution] today?
- Gary Keller: “What you build today will either empower or restrict you tomorrow. It will either serve as a platform for the next level of your success or as a box, trapping you where you are.”
- Luke 9:25 What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self?
