"Culture eats strategy for breakfast"

Believe it or not, one of the biggest predictors of health is your zip code. There are loads of reasons why this is the case, but one thing that’s for sure is that the people we surround ourselves with physically and even virtually will impact our health. If your friends and family love to hike and eat healthy food, there are better odds that you’ll also eat healthier and be more active. Unfortunately, this same thought works in the opposite direction.

The title quote to this post is from a famous management consultant, Peter Drucker. It really resonates with the work I’ve been doing with Moving Beyond Ergonomics and my physical therapy practice. You can have the best strategy in place to stay fit or productive, but if the culture and environment you are in are pushing you in an opposite direction you’re going to be fighting an uphill battle. That being said, if you have the ability to make changes to your environment and the general culture/interests of your physical and social surroundings, making positive changes in the direction you want to go becomes exponentially easier. It’s important to consider this in your personal and professional circles.

So how can you utilize this information to benefit your health? Changing your surroundings seems like an overwhelming and scary task. Change is hard, but it doesn’t have to be drastic.

Maybe you want to increase how much walking you do in a day. Is there a group of colleagues, friends, or even just one neighbor that might want to make the same change with you? Working together can make a huge difference as your accountability improves and you get socialization at the same time with positive habits. When you see that friend or are in a meeting with that colleague on zoom, you’re constantly reminded about that positive habit you want to work on, you get more friendly and positive reminders as you both push each other to get out and walk more, and when you’re not achieving the desired goal, you have someone to troubleshoot with. Maybe one of those work calls could even turn into a walking call.

Another great approach is to set up your environment to achieve the intended goal. Want to improve your ability to do pull-ups? Set up a bar in a door you cross through regularly and use it throughout the day. You’ll be surprised how quickly your abilities can improve with consistent practice that doesn’t take much time. If you desire a movement culture, enhancing your environment to encourage more movement can make a huge difference.

So what are you going to do today to help develop a movement culture in your world? Find that first small step or reach out with a Discovery Call and we can help you focus your time and energy in the most beneficial areas.

Keep moving folks.