Is Your Health a Problem or a Constraint?

One of my favourite bloggers is Seth Godin. Recently, he wrote about the difference between a problem and a constraint.

Here is his definition of the two: “A problem is solvable. A constraint must be lived with.”

Seth is a business writer, but the insight can be applied just as readily to health. Many of today’s chronic health problems are being billed by conventional medicine and the media as constraints – something we have to live with, instead of solve.

When we say, “It’s in my genes,” we’re looking at health through the lens of constraints. When we say, “There’s nothing I can do about my high blood pressure/high cholesterol/Type II diabetes,” we’re seeing more constraints – diseases, conditions and labels that have to be “lived with” and managed.

But research and experience is telling us a different story: many of our so-called “diseases” aren’t constraints. They’re just problems. They’re the result of poor diet, sedentary lifestyles and chronic stress.

And those are things we can fix.

When you see a health concern as a problem, not a constraint, it means that YOU can solve it. That’s empowering stuff.