We all know that exercise is imperative for our overall health and well-being. You have to get in your strength training and your cardio in an effort to stay healthy, be fit, and achieve optimal heart health. But did you ever stop to think about how exercise can impact your professional life too and how important it is to achieve a work/life balance? When you nurture your health, it is reflected in your life in the most unexpected ways while promoting an acceptable work/life balance.
Early Morning Workouts
For as long as I can remember, I have been going to the gym 4-5 times a week. I do strength training, functional training, TRX work, stretching, and cardio during my daily workouts. On those days I don’t go to the gym, I do some type of cardio like the elliptical, spinning classes on my Peloton, or even walking outdoors with my Standard Poodle. I have come to rely on exercise as a meaningful part of my life. It is one of the only times in my busy day of working and managing family responsibilities that I can dedicate to ME. After working with my personal trainer, she instilled in me how important and impactful exercise is on your whole being (physically and mentally). I started to look back at my career and notice things that I never paid attention to before. My energy level is directly related to whether or not I exercise that morning. I get my early morning workouts in before my work day begins, so this sets the tone for my day. I feel so energized every day when I begin working and I noticed that my job performance is positively impacted by my exercise routine. I was seeing a pattern developing with some of my clients where they had just stopped exercising due to work and family demands. It is a hard sell to get someone to deviate or modify their daily routine based on the fact that they “might” see a difference in their job performance or job search outlook. If you are willing to make time for yourself and commit to living a healthy lifestyle by exercising and eating right, the results will come! It’s like my favorite Peloton instructor always says during my classes–“you are not Amazon and you won’t show up in 2 days!” But you will start to notice little things like being able to wake up on your own or that you have more energy at the end of the day after accomplishing all of your goals. Once you train your body with exercise, your mind will follow. And this is what makes your job performance improve–you are much more focused on your work or job search and you can excel in whatever your goals are.
Should I or Shouldn’t I Commit?
Over the last few months during our career coaching sessions and resume writing engagements, I had a few of my clients try this out and document their results. I asked them to fully commit to an exercise routine for 1 month and see how they feel after the one month is complete. Do they think their job performance will be effected positively or negatively? Will you feel as overwhelmed or discouraged during your job search? Let’s see what impact exercising really has on our minds and bodies. It was challenging to secure a commitment from a few clients since it was summer time, the height of the vacation season here in New England, and they were actively balancing their job searches with competing responsibilities on the home front and work front. But never the less, they did their best to do some type of exercise on their vacations or when they were bogged down with life in general just to keep up with their exercise routine. In the end, most of them were happy with the results and noticed a significant increase in their job performance. The astounding part for my clients was that they saw a sharp rise in their job satisfaction and/or job search outlook as well. This demonstrated that taking care of yourself as a whole person and finding that time to nurture your well-being yields positive results in terms of how you perceive your job and how you approach your job search. Just from a job search perspective, the results are even more far-reaching. Your happiness, satisfaction, and confidence will come across in your job interviews, which will make a positive impression on hiring managers and reduce the time it takes to land another job.
So the bottom line is that we all need exercise to thrive in our lives no matter how busy we are or how busy we THINK we are. Whether it is job performance in your company, current job searches and interviews, or even just interpersonal relationships in your life with family, friends, and colleagues–a regular exercise routine and commitment to your own well-being will produce the most positive and life-changing results for you personally and professionally.