You have read Romans 12 before. Someone put verse 2 on a coffee mug and handed it to you at a men's breakfast.
And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Good verse. It is where almost every man starts.
Paul did not start there.
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice.
Body in verse 1. Mind in verse 2. In that order, on purpose.
I have spent over thirty years as a Doctor of Chiropractic. More than 410,000 visits, hands on real people. That is where I learned the order matters, and it is why I will not coach a man's thinking while his body is running on fumes. It does not hold. You have felt it not hold.
You decide Sunday night that this is the week. You are going to be patient with your wife, present with your kids, focused at work.
By Wednesday at four in the afternoon you are short with everyone and you cannot say why. Nothing changed about your commitment. Your body ran out before your character did.
Then you go looking for more discipline, which is the one thing that was never missing.
That is the whole failure, and most coaching makes it worse. Mindset work with the body left out will move a man for about nine days. When it stops holding he gets told he lacked willpower. He did not lack willpower. He was asked to run verse 2 on a verse 1 he never did.
1. Breath. Slow it down on purpose, a few times a day, before the day gets loud. Your nervous system is listening to your breath whether you are paying attention or not.
2. Movement. Every day. Walk, lift, stretch, get on the floor with your kids. The daily part matters more than the intensity.
3. Water. Ahead of the coffee, not after it.
4. Food that holds. Eat like a man who has an afternoon ahead of him.
5. How you choose to view the challenge in front of you, while staying centered.
That fifth one is where every mindset program starts. It works. It works when the four underneath it are in place, and it quietly stops working when they are not.
I know how the list reads. You came here for high performance and the first assignment is water. I have to live with that one too.
None of this is the point by itself. It is the ground the point stands on.
Center yourself in Christ before the day starts asking things of you. Paul says it plainly in verse 1, by the mercies of God. Not by your grit. By his mercy, and in prayer, before the phone gets a vote.
Then do the best you can in the moment you are actually in, with the body you have this morning. It works out better. I have watched it work out better for thirty years, in my life and in the lives of the men I coach.
If you do not share my faith, the order still holds. Body first, then mind. Take the four, then the fifth.
Which one of the five is the one you have been skipping? You already know which one it is.
Let's get to work.
Yours In Health and High Performance,
Dr Howard Dennis, DC, CHPC