Life is training, training for life.

Training is not merely going to the gym. Many may think of sports or games when the word training is brought up. The truth is, the entirety of life is training: using mind and body for the ever-improving accomplishment of goals and the experiencing of events.

What happens is that some choose to train in contradictory ways, or aimlessly, which makes it look like a one-sided phenomenon.

Some may be really into mental activity, reading books, say, and disregard their physicality. Some may live in the gym, and yet never perform creative activities.

In both cases, there would seem there is no training in the neglected side; when there actually is, it is just that its direction is opposite to positive progress.

Following the example, the first person is cancelling a lot of mental power by not taking care of the body, and is at the same time training the body to be weak and disobedient to the mind.

Training is both the acquisition of new skills, and the reaffirmation of old patterns.

It also has to have an overall direction, making sure that no parts contradict each other.

The only way to do this is to make sure that all important aspects of oneself are taken care of: physicality, mentality and intellectuality.

The body must be well-kept and healthy.

The mind must be tamed and understood.

Interests must be explored and shared.

Only when all three are taken care of can one begin to add personal touches and specific direction.

The most obvious of the three is physical training: maximizing the body’s strength, health, longevity; physical performance overall.

Even if your goal is to be, for example, an academic, the body must still be taken care of to make sure that its un-healthiness does not drag the mind along with it.

Also, being strong and well-built will allow for greater confidence and to command a stronger presence. Good ideas transmitted by a dangerous-looking man have a much greater reach; body language.

There simply exists a different feeling to life when you know you’re strong, capable, and respected.

The second aspect of trining is the mindset/spiritual training, an aspect without which progress would be impossible.

Body and mind can only work for us when we can control them. And we can only control them if we know ourselves fully, through introspection, if we don’t let our emotions get in the way of everything we do, and if we are mentally prepared for the toughness and challenges of the process.

The three big aspects are self-awareness, emotional control and the development of the right mindset.

We have to know ourselves fully, our weaknesses and strengths, and leverage them in our favour.

We have to make our emotions our allies, and not mere obstacles. Learn to detach ourselves from them and notice that they happen to us, and we are not defined by them.

Develop the right approach for the chosen path: again, mindset. Mold your mind into a useful system to navigate life.

And last, but not least, is the intellectual part (in decreasing order of obviousness): mental performance.

Creativity, the pursuit of one’s interests, producing and creating something useful.

Using the mind to transmute ideas into experiences.

Your work, reading, wirting, mental exercises like mathematics and memory-training.

However, optimal mental performance can only come about when the body is take care of. For original ideas can only arise within a healthy mind, and can only be transmitted by a respected individual.

Being a nerd is one thing. Being jacked is another. Being a jacked nerd philosopher is a completely different one.

So, with this in mind, life does begin to look more like a permanent quest, like a permanent preparation for its living.

I have personally spent countless hours developing the three pillars, and even though there is still plenty to be done, once the base is present, the rest is merely fine-detailing.

As with anything, once the basic foundations are laid, the path becomes much clearer and smoother.

My approach, and the approach I recommend to set on to master these aspects is to start with physicality first.

It is much easier to measure progress and the benefits show relatively quickly and explicitly.

Then, the mindset. Again, laying a solid base here is relatively straightforward and shows noticeable benefits.

Once you’ve changed those two, the mental performance follows readily, for now you have life-experience, physical ability, and discipline; a story to share and the ideal idea-generating enviroment.

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