The 5 Pillars of The Fettle Family
We here at The Fettle Family believe in putting first things first. That means we focus on the things that we find to be most important and for The Fettle Family that means our 5 Pillars. Nutrition. Fitness. Family. Sleep. Service. Those 5 pillars may not work for everyone, but they work for us and so I thought I would share what we look for within each pillar.
Nutrition. We believe that nutrition is the base of the health pyramid. Focusing on good nutrition helps the body function correctly, and focusing on the nutrition of the family helps the family function correctly. Within our nutrition pillar we tend to focus on five things — drinking enough water, eating enough fruits and vegetables, eating enough protein, eating just enough to fuel our activities, and not being overly restrictive. I could spend a lot more time on each of these, and in future posts I will, but for now we will leave at those 5 ideas to chew on.
Fitness. Moving the body is important and getting the whole family involved is fun and important. We strive to move every single day, even rest days with some active recovery. This means plenty of walks, getting outside to play, and dedicating time to fitness. Our 5 main focuses for our fitness pillar are — move at least 30-minutes a day, do some form of resistance training multiple times a week, mobilize (stretch, massage, yoga, etc.), make it fun, and include the family. There’s a million and a half ways to get the body moving. The most important aspect is not how you move it, but that you actually move it.
Family. These are the people that are most important to you. They can be related to you by blood or by other bonds. They can share the same roof as you or live in another part of the world. These relationships help guide who we are and give us reasons for getting up in the morning. After spending the past year either stuck in the same place with some of them or completely separate from them, I think we can all agree how important these relationships truly are. Within this pillar we focus on 3 main things — we tend to them like a garden (we water them, nurture them, and on occasion we weed them from our lives when necessary), we make contact both in person when we can and via calls/texts/video when necessary, and we make sure this includes people outside of our household.
Sleep. If you have ever dealt with a cranky toddler or a new parent that can’t remember where anything is you may have an idea of how important sleep is in our lives. There are so many essential body functions that occur during sleep, to ignore its importance would be missing out on so many potential benefits. Our priorities for our sleep are — get enough sleep everyday (for our adults that’s 8 hours a day, for our kids even more than that!), we start our nightly routines early, we write before bed (personally that means a short list of things I am grateful for), and we put our devices away at least an hour before bedtime.
Service. This is something I did not realize was missing from my life for a long time. It wasn’t the most obvious pillar in my life, but since reading Think Like a Monk, by Jay Shetty it has been added to my pillars. A life that includes service is a life with purpose and meaning. Purpose and meaning give you a reason to wake up in the morning and to keep going through difficult times. To us at service means — doing something of value, give your time when you can, share your gifts with the world.
We find when you put our focus on our 5 Pillars our lives become and exciting place to be. We wake up daily with excitement and gratitude, and learn to truly appreciate the people and things that make up our life. These pillars may not be for everyone, but they are a good foundation for the things we believe in at The Fettle Family.
