I absolutely LOVE this old proverb:

"The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago.  The second best time is now."

I think it's the perfect concept for those who procrastinate on their health and wellness goals--and for those who justify not setting any.

How many times have you heard someone say something like "I wish I'd have done that years ago", or "If only I'd started that when I was in my 20s", or some variation of that theme.  

Well, you may be able to slow down time, but as far as I know there's no way to turn it back.

People often use the fact that they didn't do or know something in the past as a reason or excuse or justification for not doing or changing something in the future.  

Let's look at eating organic foods, for example.  When faced with the choice of buying and eating organic vs. non-organic foods, some people say "Well, I never ate organic growing up, and I turned out okay--and besides, the damage, if there is any, is already done.  Why change now?"

The same applies for taking quality nutritional supplements like Omega 3, Vitamin D and probiotics, or for getting regular chiropractic adjustments, or for just plain getting some regular exercise.  Heck, it even applies to changing careers if you don't love the one you're in.

Changing something now doesn't mean that you were wrong or stupid or lazy in the past.  We've all made tons of mistakes and we've all done dumb things (and not done smart things) in our lives.  

But NOT changing something now when you know it's good for you just because you didn't do it in the past--well, that is wrong and stupid and lazy.

Yes, many of us wish that 20 years ago we started saving 10% of every paycheque...and started exercising regularly..and eating whole foods...and not eating processed foods...and had chosen the right career...and planned a little better for the future...and the list goes on.

Twenty years ago definitely would have been the best time to do all of this.  But, as the proverb says, the second best time is NOW.

So get out of your own way and get on with those changes you know you need to make to improve your overall level of wellness and quality of life. Twenty years from now you'll be happy you did.

Healthy lawyers make for happy lawyers.  Happy lawyers make for good lawyers. Good lawyers make for good law firms.  Good law firms create tremendous value for their clients and, in turn, are handsomely compensated.  

Having a culture of wellness in a law firm doesn't just make sense.  It makes dollars and cents.

Does your law firm have a culture of wellness?  Check out the short video above for two easy ways to find out.

Lawyers have much higher incidences of unhappiness, depression and suicide than the general population.  The profession can exact a toll on practitioners' mental well-being, that's for sure.  Lots of pressure, lots of deadlines, lots of hours, lots of stress.

But there's also a TON of great things about practicing law.  Helping your clients achieve a desired result is a great feeling.  Lawyers can help make people's lives better by taking on a client's problem and helping to make it go away in the most efficient and (hopefully) most cost-effective manner possible.

There's great intellectual challenge in being a lawyer.  There's lots of wonderful camaraderie with colleagues, both in your office and across the courtroom.  In many cases there's financial abundance that comes with being a hard-working and principled lawyer - especially after 10 or so years at the bar.

People love to tell jokes, but the fact is that society needs lawyers.  Anarchy would ensue without lawyers interpreting and upholding the rule of law.  Fact is,  lawyers are essential to the proper functioning of society - just as much as doctors and policemen and firefighters and other professions that get a much better rap than us poor lawyers do most of the time.

Practicing law is a noble profession.  There's no need for it to cause such unhappiness and depression amongst those brave and intelligent souls that practice law.  Being a lawyer should enhance quality of life, not detract from it.  But sadly, much too often, the practice can negatively impact life rather than help to create an epic life for the lawyer and his or her family.

Wellnesslawyer.com wants to help change that.  Why can't lawyers be known as people who have it all together, whether in the boardroom, the courtroom, or the family room?

Give me some reasons why it can't happen, and I'll tell you why it can - and should.

Since I've become passionate about wellness, one of the biggest discoveries I've made is that wellness is not an end game.  You don’t strive for wellness so you can go around saying See how well I am?

Wellness is simply a MEANS to an END.

And the end is QUALITY OF LIFE.

To me that’s what it’s all about.  Creating the best quality of life you can during your short time on this planet.  And you simply cannot have an outstanding quality of life if your health and wellness are compromised.  Period.

So what is Quality of Life?

That's a great question.  You can find some super complex and long-winded definitions out there if you look. But I prefer a simple definition of Quality of Life.  It’s one I have refined from the words of Jon Butcher, founder of Lifebook:

Quality of life is the degree to which you do what you want, when you want, where you want, how you want, and with the people and things you want.

Another word for this?  Freedom.

If you have complete freedom of what, when, where, how and with, then you’ll have a great a quality of life.

Now, very few people have complete freedom in each of these categories.  But the degree to which you do have freedom in these categories is the degree to which will have a great quality of life.

And let me be clear on this:  Quality of life is NOT dependent on how much money you have.  Money can help, for sure, but it is not the determining factor.

Your health and wellness are BY FAR more important to your quality of life than money, or any other factor in your life.

The old adage is true:  Health=Wealth.

So, to sum up:  If you want an awesome quality of life, you have to have high levels of wellness.  End of story.

Isn't that worth striving for?

I recently had the pleasure of presenting my Lawyer Wellness: From Oxymoron to Optimal Living workshop at the CBA-NB MidWinter Conference.  Here's a little clip from the start of the workshop. 

So what do you think?  Can you practice law AND have a high level of wellness in all the important areas of your life?

Well, as Henry Ford said:  "Whether you think you can, or you think you can't, you're right."

Even though I come from a Chevrolet family, I have to agree with Mr. Ford on that one.

To find out how you can supercharge your wellness and quality of life while practicing law, sign up for the 10 Essentials series below.  It's a game changer and is guaranteed to help you figure out and focus on what's most important in your life. And the inevitable result of doing that is an increased level of wellness in your life.

So sign up today and have fun starting down the path to creating and living an epic life - yes, even while practicing law!

I am learning from experience once again how much more energy I have when I exercise regularly.  

I say it all the time to lawyers and others who struggle to fit exercise into their day. I tell them that exercise is an investment that pays HUGE dividends in your life--both in the short and long term.  I tell them that exercise isn't just something that we should do when we feel like it; rather exercise is an essential component to the proper functioning of the human body.  Exercise is a nutrient the body needs just like water, vitamins and minerals.

I have these conversations all the time, but it's always nice to be reminded personally just how true all these statements are. A couple of weeks ago our one and a half year old brought a stomach bug into our house, and we each took a turn battling through it.  Mine lasted about 36 hours - mainly consisting of nausea and stomach cramping, but no actual vomitting. Nevertheless, my core muscles became so tight during the cramping that I hurt my back when I overstretched to grab something.  It was a movement that I do a hundred times a day, but because I was so tight, I really gave a good tweak to my back.

It's much better now, but for the last 10 days I have not been able to exercise - and it will probably be until next week until I can resume my full exercise routine.

And what has been the result of no exercise for the last 10 days?  Gained weight? Loss of muscle tone?  Decrease in cardio endurance?

Well, probably all of those things have occurred, but I'm not really concerned about those things. They don't really affect my day-to-day living and I know when I am back to 100% I can reverse whatever negative effects my exercise layoff has had in those areas.

The more concerning and noticeable result to me of no exercise for the last 10 days is a huge decrease in my energy levels.  I feel tired pretty much all day, and as soon as I get the kids to bed, I just want to hit the sack as well.  Worse, even though I'm tired, I don't sleep as well and don't feel remotely rested when I wake up in the morning.  So I feel tired all day and the vicious cycle keeps turning.

So for those of you that don't exercise regularly right now, please - PLEASE! - commit to exercising every day for 30 minutes for the next 7 days.  You will get a HUGE boost to your energy levels and you will notice how that affects every other area of your life.

I can't wait until next week when, hopefully, my little "back setback" will be fully healed and I can regain the vitality I have when I exercise every day.

Lawyers, more than most people, often struggle to find enough time in the day to get everything done.  But I don't think that's such a bad thing.  It's a sign that you're motivated and driven and take pride in your work and in the rest of your life, and you want to get the most out of it.

What is a bad thing in my opinion is when someone looks back at a period of time (ie. a month, or a year) and thinks Geez. . .where did all the time go?

To me, that's a sign of not living consciously.  It's a sign of not living in the moment enough and of not being present enough with what you're doing and how you're feeling.

If you look back on the last month or year and say it was all a blur, then you have not been focused enough on living your life.  You've probably been too focused on what comes next rather than what is now.

Don't get me wrong.  It is important to think about and plan for the future, no question.  But the future is a process.  Your life is a process.  You've got to take notice of, and enjoy, the process.  

You need to enjoy the now - not to the detriment of the future, but to the betterment of the future.

Enjoying the now doesn't mean eating chocolate cake every day and maxing out credit cards.  Enjoying the now means enjoying the process of living and working towards a life of happiness and fulfillment. 

Enjoying the now means taking notice of the things that make you happy, and of the things that don't make you happy, so that you can work to create more of the happy and less of the unhappy in the future.

Enjoying the now means EXPERIENCING your life.  Tasting it, savouring it - like you would a fine wine.

When you do that, you will be bringing an increased level of consciousness to your life.  And when you bring increasing consciousness to your life, TIME SLOWS DOWN.

Over the last year I have gone through tremendous change in my life.  I wrote about that here.

And when I look back to a year ago, I can't believe it was only a year ago.  How did all this happen in only one year?  

Look, I'm not saying that I am Johnny Super Duper Productive and got all of this or that done in one year - that's not it at all. What I'm saying is that over the last year I have brought a ton more consciousness to all aspects of my life than I ever had before, and the result is that time. . . slowed. . . down.

Now, you might say, Yeah but as the old saying goes, time flies when you're having fun.  So if time slows down, you must not be having fun!

Well, I've got two responses for that.  First, it's just an old saying.  Maybe it's time to throw it out, and replace it with Time flies when you're not paying attention to your life.

Second, I think that saying is meant to apply only to short periods of time - like a night out with friends, for example.  I know that when my wife and I get a babysitter and get out with friends - or even just ourselves -  the clock really seems to race by fast now matter how conscious I am to make sure I enjoy every moment of it.

Frankly, I think that people for whom large periods of time (weeks, months, years) "fly by" subconsiously want them to fly by - because they're simply not enjoying the process of experiencing their life.  They're not leading happy, fulfilled lives. They've chosen to turn the autopilot light on and to keep it on.

If you're one of those people, it's time to turn off the autopilot and to start experiencing your life.

I've been on autopilot before and let me tell you, living consciously is a lot more fun.  You feel so much more alive! 

You have to work at it, but it's worth it.  Because living consciously will buy you what money can't:  TIME.

Now, if you think I am completely nuts and want another theory on how to slow down time, have a look at this quick video.

Last week I challenged everyone to make a commitment to wellness, write it down, and exchange it with someone else.  You and that someone else became instant accountability partners. I asked you all to call your accountability partner in one week (that's today, by the way!) to follow up to make sure your partner followed through on their commitment and so that you'd be more committed to follow through on yours.

Love to hear your success stories--leave them in the comments box below.

Having an accountability partner exponentially increases the likelihood that you will do what you say you're going to do.  If we just tell ourselves we're going to do something--get up three mornings this week and exercise before work, for example--it's too easy to let excuses creep into the equation, or to let inevitable obstacles derail your efforts.  

It's sort of strange, but letting ourselves down is somehow less of a problem than letting someone else down.  We all seem to break promises to ourselves much more easily than promises to others. I'm not really sure why that is exactly. Probably because we don't want to look bad in the eyes of others.  We don't want people to say that we lack commitment or that we can't keep our word.  It affects our character negatively, and nobody wants that.

In any event, suffice it to say that if you really want to make positive change in your life when it comes to your overall level of wellness, then you NEED to get someone to hold you accountable.  If you don't it's too easy not to follow through. It's too easy to cheat on yourself.

So if you haven't done so already, find someone to be your accountability partner. It should be someone that won't let you off the hook easily. 

You've got to push yourself outside your comfort zone, and having someone else there to give you a nudge can make all the difference.

I have come to recognize that the two main reasons why lawyers--and society at large for that matter--struggle with the level of wellness in their lives are:

1. They have a lack of or the wrong information about what it means to be healthy and well; and
2. They make poor choices and take the wrong actions when it comes to their health and wellness.

So that's why I have created the 10 Essentials Series.  

If you subscribe to the Series by entering your email address to the right of this post or at the end of this post, you will get a series of 10 emails over the next 10 days that will give you the information and action steps that will set you up to take your wellness and quality of life to the next level.

The 10 Essentials Series will give you exactly what YOU NEED to KNOW and DO NOW to Supercharge your wellness and quality of life.

Are you ready?

This afternoon I am presenting my popular Lawyer Wellness:  From Oxymoron to Optimal Living talk at the Canadian Bar Association New Brunswick Branch MidWinter Conference.

At the end of my talk I will be challenging everyone in the room to participate in a Lawyer Wellness Challenge.

The Challenge is simply this:

Commit to one thing you will do to improve your level of wellness over the next 7 days and write it down on a piece of paper.  It could be anything.  Here's some examples:  walk 30 minutes a day, hire a personal trainer, cut out or cut down on coffee or pop, enroll in a personal development course or a healthy cooking course, create your wellness chart, mend a fence with a relative, identify who your uplifting friends are and lose the numbers of the ones that aren’t, etc. . .

On the same piece of paper, write down your name and number (not email) and give it to someone else.  Ask them to do the same thing and give their wellness commitment to you.  That’s your accountability partner. 

Then one week later, call your accountability partner to confirm if you did what you said you were going to do, and to ask them if they did what they said they were going to do.

That’s it – but if you want to keep it going week after week, all the better!

Log your commitments and achievements in the comments section below.  

Everyone who puts their commitments on the blog gets a chance to win 2 FREE HOURS of wellness and quality of life coaching from the Wellness Lawyer AND a $100 gift certificate from Lululemon.

Good luck and have fun with it.