The Biggest Barrier to Achieving Financial Freedom
Financial freedom may become an elusive goal, if we are not focusing on one of the most important aspects of our life: Our Health.
We can't do anything about our past, but we can take steps to improve our future.
And we need to begin Now by focusing on our health! I realize that all of us start with certain aspects of our health that can't be changed.
But for each of us, there is an "optimal" health that is based on such factors as family history, accidents, or illness.
This optimal health would represent the healthiest we can be, if we make the wisest health-related choices moving forward.
The impact of making changes to our health can be significant.
Not only will our life expectancy increase, along with the quality of our life; but the financial impact may be felt immediately.
Two of the most obvious financial impacts are the costs of medications and treatments and the loss of irrecoverable time while undergoing a disease treatment program.
The less obvious impact of not taking care of our health may be the cost of necessary insurance coverages, or the impact on job performance.
Although there are several health-related factors that are directly under our control, these two may be among the most important: Smoking - If you are still smoking, even with all the warnings you are hearing; you are still not realizing what that activity is costing you.
A friend of mine, who stopped smoking over 30 years ago, talks about how he quit "cold turkey" when the price of cigarettes increased to $.
50 a pack.
Anyone who is still smoking would consider that price to be a steal: $.
50 won't even cover the taxes.
As of today, a pack of cigarettes in the United States varies from approximately $5.
00 to $12.
00.
( http://www.
theawl.
com ) At an average cost of $8.
50 a pack, a 2 pack a day cigarette habit costs almost $6,200 a year!! To make matters worse, the additional costs of health insurance, life insurance and disability insurance attributed to smoking can be much higher than that.
And finally, this doesn't count the impact on the way you feel, the wear and tear on your wardrobe, and the impact on your quality of life.
Weight Management - Do you know your BMI (Body Mass Index)? You may be surprised to learn that BMI numbers across the United States today are higher in every state than the highest BMI numbers were anywhere in the country in 1990.
(See CDC website if you want some interesting metrics.
) What this means is that we truly are experiencing an epidemic of obesity in this country that is impacting the costs of healthcare for all of us.
But more importantly, our weight may be impacting our financial future.
If we are carrying too much weight, we are subjecting ourselves to the increased risk of diseases like diabetes, high blood pressure, heart attacks, strokes, and cancer.
These major diseases not only cost significant amounts of money for treatment, they may also impact our ability to perform effectively at our highest level.
This will then affect our income as well.
We can't do anything about our past, but we can take steps to improve our future.
And we need to begin Now by focusing on our health! I realize that all of us start with certain aspects of our health that can't be changed.
But for each of us, there is an "optimal" health that is based on such factors as family history, accidents, or illness.
This optimal health would represent the healthiest we can be, if we make the wisest health-related choices moving forward.
The impact of making changes to our health can be significant.
Not only will our life expectancy increase, along with the quality of our life; but the financial impact may be felt immediately.
Two of the most obvious financial impacts are the costs of medications and treatments and the loss of irrecoverable time while undergoing a disease treatment program.
The less obvious impact of not taking care of our health may be the cost of necessary insurance coverages, or the impact on job performance.
Although there are several health-related factors that are directly under our control, these two may be among the most important: Smoking - If you are still smoking, even with all the warnings you are hearing; you are still not realizing what that activity is costing you.
A friend of mine, who stopped smoking over 30 years ago, talks about how he quit "cold turkey" when the price of cigarettes increased to $.
50 a pack.
Anyone who is still smoking would consider that price to be a steal: $.
50 won't even cover the taxes.
As of today, a pack of cigarettes in the United States varies from approximately $5.
00 to $12.
00.
( http://www.
theawl.
com ) At an average cost of $8.
50 a pack, a 2 pack a day cigarette habit costs almost $6,200 a year!! To make matters worse, the additional costs of health insurance, life insurance and disability insurance attributed to smoking can be much higher than that.
And finally, this doesn't count the impact on the way you feel, the wear and tear on your wardrobe, and the impact on your quality of life.
Weight Management - Do you know your BMI (Body Mass Index)? You may be surprised to learn that BMI numbers across the United States today are higher in every state than the highest BMI numbers were anywhere in the country in 1990.
(See CDC website if you want some interesting metrics.
) What this means is that we truly are experiencing an epidemic of obesity in this country that is impacting the costs of healthcare for all of us.
But more importantly, our weight may be impacting our financial future.
If we are carrying too much weight, we are subjecting ourselves to the increased risk of diseases like diabetes, high blood pressure, heart attacks, strokes, and cancer.
These major diseases not only cost significant amounts of money for treatment, they may also impact our ability to perform effectively at our highest level.
This will then affect our income as well.
Source...