There’s a fundamental link between your health (which is being free of illness and in a good physical and mental condition) and how you show up in the world. It’s especially true of how you show up in your business, and has a direct effect on your ability to take action to create success.

So hold on to your hats, we’re about to take a whistle stop tour for you to connect the dots between how you feel and how you perform in your business.

Being your best self in business

Let’s first of think about how you want to be in your business. If you were showing up as your best self every day, it might look something like this:

• I’m productive and I make best use of the time I have available
• I have the energy I need to support me for the day
• I’m motivated to get things done, and able to step outside my comfort zone
• I take action every day
• I’m happy with my work/life balance
• I’m able to make decisions with ease
• I have a strong belief in myself and what I do
• I’m driven to succeed

How does your health prevent you showing up as your best self?

If that sounds roughly how you’d show up as your best self in business, and you’re not there now, what’s stopping you?

There’s lots of things it *could* be…mindset, belief, subconscious blocks, not having the right strategy….

But in searching for whatever it *could* be, we often overlook the four things that fundamentally affect how we feel and how we perform. Those are the four building blocks of good health:

• Diet
• Exercise
• Sleep
• Stress

So let’s take that whistle stop tour to see how these affect you.

Diet

You truly are what you eat. Your body needs the right nutrition to function effectively, and critical to that is feeding your brain for that thinking power you need. Reaching for processed convenience foods and alcohol because you’re stressed, tired and haven’t got enough time is a vicious cycle. Your poor body can’t keep up, so these are the things you’ll experience:

Peaks and troughs of energy
Brain fog
Poor concentration
Irritability and low mood
Lethargy
Weight gain
Coughs and colds because your immune system isn’t functioning properly
Risk of illnesses like type 2 diabetes and heart disease

Exercise

Your body is designed to move, it needs regular activity to help you function effectively. Finding yourself stuck at your desk all day, prioritising work over activity is completely counter productive. No exercise puts you at risk of:

Low energy levels
Poor sleep
Weight gain
Random aches and pains
Irritability and low mood
Risk of illnesses like type 2 diabetes and heart disease

Sleep

Whilst you’re sleeping your body and especially your brain are processing and repairing themselves. It’s amazing the body knows just what to do to keep you healthy, and then you go and not get enough sleep to let it do that. Contrary to what you might believe, you really do need between seven and nine hours a night. And that’s quality sleep that isn’t affected by you looking at your mobile phone in bed and waking up a 4am with a buzzing brain. Here’s what to expect if you don’t sleep:

Low energy levels
Irrational thoughts
Weight gain
Irritability and low mood
Brain fog
Poor concentration
Impaired decision making

Stress

Diet, exercise and sleep all affect your ability to deal with sleep. So it’s a double whammy as a business owner if you’re not getting those three right, you’ll be even more affected my the everyday stresses of running a business. The effects of long term and chronic stress are enormous, and this is the one that will most affect your ability to do all those amazing things you want to do in your business. Here’s some of the risks:

Peaks and troughs of energy
Brain fog
Anxiety
Poor concentration
Irritability and low mood
Lethargy
Weight gain
Coughs and colds because your immune system isn’t functioning properly
Risk of illnesses like type 2 diabetes and heart disease
Risk of burnout and serious long term health issues and diseases
Digestive system is impaired
Body hurts with random aches and pains

Try showing up as your best self when you’re dealing with all that!

Reading through those lists though, can you see that not looking after those four building blocks of good health has a direct impact on you? If it’s having a direct impact on you, it’s having a direct impact on your business. If you’re aiming for the business success you want, but you’re not looking after your health, you’re making things way harder than they need to be.

Looking after your health is fundamental to business success. When you start prioritising it and taking actions based on improving your health, you really will see a difference to your levels of success.

Ellie Guest is a Wellness Coach and Advanced Myofascial Release Therapist. She specialises in helping female business owners create balance, success and resilience and avoid cycles of stress that lead to burnout. Find out more about her on her website here: www.ellieguest.co.uk