When Should It Matter?

Nothing matters until it does.

I’ve said that for years.

Your fitness doesn’t seem terribly important until you need your body to perform.

Your relationships may feel fine until the phone rings with bad news.

Your finances are manageable until something expensive happens.

Your ability to regulate stress may seem academic until life gives you something very real to regulate.

So lately I’ve been thinking there is another question buried underneath that phrase:

When should it matter?

My answer is increasingly simple.

Before it has to.

Lean Forward in the Foxhole

The Army gave me a couple of ways of thinking about this that have stuck with me.

One was to lean forward in the foxhole. Be ready for what comes next.

Another was to constantly improve the fighting position.

You didn’t wait until the fight started.

You checked your equipment. Improved your position. Replenished what you needed. Rested when you could. Took care of the people around you.

Then you kept making things a little better.

Not because you knew exactly what was coming.

Because you didn’t.

That’s pretty close to how I think about Comprehensive Fitness today.

Readiness Before Resilience

There is decades of work in positive psychology and resilience behind the idea that capabilities can be developed before adversity arrives.

Karen Reivich, Martin Seligman, and others helped move resilience away from the idea that some people simply “have it” and others don’t. Skills involving thinking, emotional regulation, problem solving, communication, and coping can be practiced and strengthened.

Medicine increasingly uses a similar idea through prehabilitation: improve someone’s capacity before a predictable physical stressor such as surgery.

A new randomized clinical trial in JAMA Network Open, for example, found better depression and anxiety outcomes among older surgical patients who received a multicomponent intervention beginning before major surgery.

That’s interesting evidence.

But the idea is bigger than surgery.

And it’s bigger than resilience.

Ready for What?

Fit for Function means being capable of doing what life requires of me today.

That function might be standing on a factory floor for eight hours.

It might be carrying groceries upstairs.

It might be fighting for your life in a dark alley.

Ready for Life asks something harder.

What happens when the unexpected becomes real?

A diagnosis.

A job loss.

A relationship problem.

A family emergency.

A crisis we never saw coming.

We can’t prepare specifically for every possible event.

That’s exactly why we build general capacity.

Physical.

Emotional.

Social.

Financial.

Intellectual.

Spiritual.

Family.

Occupational.

Environmental.

Not because every domain needs to be perfect.

Because we don’t know which one life is going to test next.

Improve the Fighting Position

So maybe the goal isn’t to predict what’s coming.

It’s simply to keep improving the position from which we’ll meet it.

Put It Into Practice

Look across your life and ask one question:

Where am I unnecessarily vulnerable right now?

Don’t fix everything.

Improve one thing.

Make the appointment.

Do the workout.

Save some money.

Call the person.

Learn the skill.

Get some sleep.

Have the conversation.

Make the First Right Move.

Then tomorrow, improve the position again.

Nothing matters until it does.

The question is whether we wait until that moment to start getting ready.

Do Better.

Fit for Function. Ready for Life.

Sources

Reivich, K., Seligman, M. E. P., & McBride, S. (2011). Master resilience training in the U.S. Army. American Psychologist, 66(1), 25–34. The article describes the Army’s resilience-training program and its effort to develop psychological capabilities proactively rather than waiting for adversity.

Abraham, J., et al. (2026). Perioperative Depression and Anxiety Care in Older Patients: A Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA Network Open. Published September 9, 2026. The study tested a multicomponent intervention initiated before major surgery in adults age 60 and older. Its findings are specific to that population and intervention; the broader application to Comprehensive Fitness is my interpretation.