If you had to choose, which would you prioritise: Health or Money?

Prefer to listen to this content rather than read? Click here for the recording

For the majority of us, the answer is immediate: Health for the win.

Yet, if you break it down to daily choices, the evidence may point to the opposite.

Sitting for long periods at your desk, even though you know getting up and moving is better for your back.

Going on a business trip and skipping your sports routine.

Working weekends rather than prioritising time with friends and family.

The list can go on.

Our lives are not neatly organized into a beautiful balance, so it makes sense that sometimes we focus more on work/money and other times on everything else.

What we often forgot is to take a step back and look at where our energy is going. If we put too much energy into money (working for it, worrying about it), then we tilt the balance towards stress and exhaustion.

The key to making healthy priorities is to know when to shift your focus so that you´re managing your energy levels well and tackling stress before it takes over your day.

Take a look at this neat diagram that explains the idea (hat-tip to my colleague Said Layadi for sharing this with me):

So the idea here is that if you find yourself reaching the two boxes on the left, your health rituals pull you back to the two on the right.

Your health rituals can be anything that helps you relax and unwind. For most of us, these usually involve movement, contact with people that care about us, laughter, food… or a combination of all of these!

To move this from theory to practice, take a look at your day today. Where are there potential moments of stress that you can actively avoid? When in your day will you make time to unwind a little?

And if you push the lens to look at the next seven days: Where will your health rituals help your energy levels stay at a point where you feel happy and healthy most of the time?

How often do you take the time to take that step back and make sense of where your energy is going? And how often do you run on autopilot?

When the game is truly over, the king and the pawn go back into the same box.

So it makes little sense to spend your time playing this game in a state of stress.

Prioritise wisely.