048 • What to build first - physical or mental health?
048 • What to build first - physical or mental health?
What came first, the chicken or the egg?
This is a cliché question and also not applicable to self-development in any way. So I'm going to ask a different (similar) question which is more important in context, giving my own experiences to answer it...
"What to build first - the body or the mind?"
Let me explain why this is an important question to ask...
It's clear that improving mental and physical health involves a positive feedback loop in correlation with each other - you improve one and the other likely gets better too.
But how do you start this loop in the first place? Is there a certain order in which you should start?
I can't answer this for certain and although I believe you can probably start with either, my journey into self-development started through improving physical health...
In 2018, at 14 years of age, I joined the only gym in my town. I had no understanding of self-development, delayed gratification or any other concept that would make my mental health better.
But I knew I wanted to be better at the sports I was taking part in during secondary school and realised that training would make it more likely I could achieve the satisfying feeling of winning.
So I trained my body. And, in turn, my physical health improved. Over time, I became increasingly aware of how training was changing my mindset on things - I now understood that to gain a desired result I'd have to sacrifice my comfort in the present moment.
I learned to apply this primitive understanding of delaying gratification to other areas of my life, and after my A-level exams in the summer of 2022, I started to lean much further into learning about how the mind works, from psychology to mental models and more.
In turn, I began to understand the link between physical and mental health, leading to more investment in training, which cleared my mind and led to better thinking and satisfaction.
Can it be done the other way? Through my understanding, I'd be tempted to say it's much harder. Because I started improving my physical health at such a young age it was unlikely I was ever going to comprehend mental health and psychology before I learned to pick up and put down heavy weights.
If you're older and have a more developed mental landscape you may have come across psychology and cognitive development before learning that improving physical health would benefit the texture of your thoughts.
I can only provide my own experience as a response. If you've experienced different then please reply and let me know. I hope you've enjoyed this piece.
See you next week,
-- Theo
What I've written this week...
How I Manage LARGE Projects in Obsidian - A deep dive into how I organised my notes whilst building my digital product PARAZETTEL, a large project that spanned many months. I'm hosting a free workshop on this topic in two weeks too - get on my product email list at parazettel.com to be involved.
My most popular post on X this week...
I've been adding more content to fundamentalised.com every day. Check it out now and then - I guarantee you'll find a piece you haven't read before!
As well as this, I'm working on getting every back issue of the newsletter into their dedicated space on the site too. I'll let you know when this is done.