Making healthy, sustainable choices for our health and fitness can often feel like a secondary goal, always on the back burner. The philosophy of Stoicism, originating in Greece and refined in Rome, offers a timeless framework for living well. Its four cardinal virtues, taught by philosophers such as Plato, are wisdom, courage, justice and temperance. These virtues can help you navigate health, wellness and fitness decisions with clarity and purpose by helping you:
- Make healthier choices (moderation in food/drink; exercise)
- Reduce stress through focusing on what’s controllable
- Push outside your comfort zone to grow
- Act responsibly for our community
- Find peace by accepting mortality
Together, these lead to a more virtuous, less anxious, and purposeful life, which inherently supports well-being and longer, better living.
Wisdom (Understanding/Learning)
Wisdom starts with learning, but it also requires understanding what is truly within your control: your judgments, actions and responses. Working out for an hour a day is the easy part of the fitness goal. The other waking hours of making healthy choices are the more challenging parts of the goal. In health and fitness, this means focusing on your habits and mindset rather than worrying about uncontrollable outcomes such as genetics or trendy social media posts from fitness influencers selling supplements. In a nutshell, use wisdom in these three ways to improve health, fitness and wellness:
- Control what you can control. Do this especially when faced with setbacks, such as a missed workout or a slip in diet. Redirect your energy toward what you can do next, not what you cannot change.
- Seek facts, not opinions. Approach nutrition, exercise plans and wellness advice with an objective mind that is based on science. Avoid emotional reactions and look for evidence-based information.
- Make sound choices. Use reason to evaluate what’s beneficial or harmful for your training and nutrition, avoiding extreme diets or fad workout routines.
Courage (to Push Outside Your Comfort Zone)
Courage is not just about bravery. Courage is more about enduring discomfort and doing the right thing, especially when it’s hard. In your fitness journey, this means pushing through challenges and facing fears, such as trying a new activity or simply walking into a gym for the first time. The courage to challenge yourself with activities you are new to or not good at doing will help you become a well-rounded exerciser with performance and longevity goals. Try these three ways to add courage that enables you to make better decisions:
- Accept the discomfort that comes with growth, whether it’s physical strain in exercise or emotional struggle in changing habits.
- Remain focused on your goals and health commitments. Prioritize sleep, rest or recovery, and along with not skipping training days, even when external pressures tempt you otherwise.
- Act objectively and see your circumstances as they are, not how you wish them to be, and respond realistically to challenges. Assess your progress regularly.
Justice (Fairness and Kindness)
Justice is about treating others and yourself with fairness, kindness and respect. In fitness, much is passed down from the older generation to the younger. Be that person who shares what you know with the next generation. This means supporting a positive training environment, whether at the gym, in group classes or among friends and family.
- Treat others well by showing encouragement to people at every stage of their health journey, regardless of ability or background. This is powerful in people’s lives and makes you feel good, too.
- Serve others by sharing knowledge, motivating workout partners, family members, and contributing to a supportive culture of activity to help others build the habit of fitness. Justice is also holding each other accountable.
- Teach and communicate about your experiences, failures, and successes with humility. Having others learn from your mistakes and experiences is a smart way to communicate with the younger generation and beginners to fitness.
Temperance (Moderation and Discipline)
Temperance is discipline. None of these works can be done without discipline. We must learn to manage desires, impulses and habits to avoid excess in anything. In fitness and wellness, this virtue is vital for long-term success and well being. Training needs to be balanced with recovery, and this takes discipline to make some days easier than others. Too much of any good thing becomes a bad thing.
- Avoid too much food, social media, supplements or even exercise. Balance is key to optimal performance, longevity and long-term goal achievement.
- Manage impulsive responses to stress, frustration or temptation, choosing actions that keep you on track with your values and goals.
- Practice discipline by doing things that are good for you, even when you do not want to. Working out daily is often the easy part. The rest of the day, when food choices are tempting us to cheat on our diet, is the hardest for most people.
For many who find comfort in making the easy options or cheating on diets, you can also experience the same comfort (dopamine hit) by not doing it and choosing the healthier choice. These four virtues work together to flip the switch on how your body responds to new disciplined actions. For example, justice requires wisdom to discern the right action. Then, it takes courage to act on those insights and push yourself outside the comfort zone. Finally, deciding to be disciplined and hold firm is the temperance that avoids selfishness or excess. In your health journey, applying all four virtues helps you stay resilient, make thoughtful choices, and build a sense of purpose and connection.
You can also use the Military.com Fitness Section to aid your health, wellness, and fitness journey. There are thousands of articles and videos full of practical tools for building resilience, mitigating stress and disciplined living for optimal performance and longevity. By focusing on what you can control, acting with courage and kindness to others, and practicing self-discipline, you create a foundation for lasting health and wellness, not just for yourself, but for the wider community as well.
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