What does health mean as a core value?
Health as a core value means looking after your body and mind as the foundation for everything else, with steady habits around sleep, food, movement and stress.
Work, family and plans for later life all lean on a body and mind that hold up. If health is one of your core values, you probably treat it as the foundation everything else stands on. You pay attention to sleep, food, stress and check-ups, often because you’ve seen what happens when people don’t, or felt it yourself. Mental health counts as much as physical. Both are things you maintain week by week, long before anything needs repair.
What does health look like in practice?
- You book the check-up you’ve been putting off, and actually go.
- You leave the party early to get enough sleep before an important day.
- You put exercise in your diary and treat it as seriously as a meeting.
- You notice stress building and do something about it before it turns into illness.
- You cook from scratch most nights because you want to know what you’re eating.
- You talk to someone about your mental health as readily as you’d see a physio about a sore knee.
When is health overplayed?
Health can tip into anxiety or control. Tracking every step, calorie and heartbeat takes the pleasure out of eating and moving, and minor symptoms become major worries. Rigid routines crowd out spontaneity and friendship, and others may feel judged for their choices. At its best, this value is relaxed enough to enjoy a late night or a slice of cake, because the point is a full life. One thing you could try is to pick one metric you track and stop tracking it for a month. Then notice what you miss, if anything.
Often confused with
Health vs Wellbeing
Wellbeing is feeling good in yourself overall. Health is the physical and mental condition underneath, and you can be in good health while your wellbeing is low.
Health vs Movement
Movement is loving an active, physical life for its own sake. Health values exercise mainly for what it protects.
Health vs Discipline
Discipline is sticking to what you’ve committed to. It’s often how a commitment to health gets lived: health is the goal, and discipline is one route to it.
Questions to sit with
- Which health signal have you been meaning to look into, and what would make this the week you do?
- If your body could comment on your last month, what would it say?
- Where has looking after your health started to cost you the life it’s meant to protect?
More values in Health
Looking after your body, mind and energy.
About the author
Matt Rutherford is a Career and Leadership Coach. The Values Finder is the same exercise he uses with his coaching clients. He also writes Stuff that MattRs, a weekly newsletter with practical ideas to help you think clearer and work better.
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