#15 - What’s the Cost?

Everything cost something – time, money, energy, emotion, effort, other opportunities. But when you write off taking action on something that you know you need to do based off of any of those excuses, you aren’t looking at the full cost of something. Letter in mail about insurance benefits – Joseph’s type 2 diabetes cost example Doctor’s visits, medications, equipment, special arrangements, loss of energy, feeling bad, not being able to do the things you want to do.. These are all very real costs that have very real consequences. People are twice as likely to move away from Pain as they are towards benefit or pleasure. You’re more likely to change your diet because of GI problems, health concerns, or allergy than you are to change for more energy, better physique, or better performance. You’re more likely to go see a doctor to fix an illness, solve a pain, or seek a way out of a health crisis than you are to work with a doctor on preventative measures, work with a trainer to improve your body, or seek out help to improve your diet to feel better, look better, and live better. So what does it come down to? People will obviously spend the money when problems become “real” but it’s so obvious from the outside that it never needed to get that bad.. How do you make something important to you that just isn’t important to you? - Actually write out the cost of something in terms of dollars, time, energy, and missed opportunity - Seek out reminders of things that happened to people around you that could happen to you – preventable illnesses (diabetes, cancer from smoking, hearing loss, brain damage..) Health loss – Loss of strength, loss of mobility leading to injury (little overuse problems, joint replacements, wheel chair bound, dependent on medication, pacemakers, pain pills…) Physical size – being obese/overweight, needed extra accommodations for travel, needed extra help in the nursing home, needed wheelchairs to move around… Work with a professional to reframe these situations and make a system that works for YOU. Far too often we talk down about that which we don’t understand. It’s scary and unknown so we choose to remain ignorant. FIND SOMEONE TO EXPLAIN THINGS TO YOU IN A WAY THAT YOU UNDERSTAND. Just because investing money, saving for retirement, or budgeting your expenses may seem confusing doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist or isn’t important. Same with nutrition, Same with technology… Next time you find yourself ignoring a problem, putting something off, or downplaying the effect of something negative in your life, stop yourself and take a moment to really consider what the actual cost of inaction is. It’s far more than you think