Wellness isn't just "being free from disease". Wellness is literally every area of our lives working together to create this life that we live. When we look at our lives from that perspective, we can shift to adopting a better way of living...we can create a symbiotic relationship between every area of our lives and really understand how every area can affect another.
There are 8 Dimensions to Wellness that impact every aspect of our lives. Understanding how each dimension impacts us on a daily basis is step one to developing wellness as a lifestyle and truly cultivating our wellbeing. Obviously, if you have a disease you will need to work on that on different levels (through traditional medicine and maybe some not-so traditional avenues), but in general terms, achieving wellness and cultivating wellness as a lifestyle is not that difficult.
I want to share more on what wellbeing is because I reference it quite a bit. Wellbeing is the experience of overall health and happiness, and it consists of positive relationships with others, and includes having a sense of purpose in all we do. Wellbeing is so much deeper than its definition though. It literally affects our life in every single area. I’ve done a ton of research on this and learned a lot about it at IIN and also through my own personal experience and I cannot stress enough about how important it is to really think about how this pertains to your life.
So let me break down the 8 Dimensions to Wellness…and just know that in the 2nd season of the Prosper and Flourish podcast we will discuss one area a week.
Emotional Wellness inspires self-care, relaxation, stress reduction and the development of inner strength, while having the ability to acknowledge feelings of stress, anger and fear.
Social Wellness is the ability to relate to and connect with other people in our world. Our ability to establish and maintain positive relationships with family, friends and co-workers contributes to our Social Wellness.
Spiritual Wellness is the ability to establish peace and harmony in our lives. The ability to develop congruency between values and actions and to realize a common purpose that binds creation together contributes to our Spiritual Wellness.
Environmental Wellness is the ability to recognize our own responsibility for the quality of the air, the water and the land that surrounds us. The ability to make a positive impact on the quality of our environment, be it our homes, our communities or our planet contributes to our Environmental Wellness.
Physical Wellness is the ability to maintain a healthy quality of life that allows us to get through our daily activities without undue fatigue or physical stress. The ability to recognize that our behaviors have a significant impact on our wellness and adopting healthful habits (routine check ups, a balanced diet, exercise, etc.) while avoiding destructive habits (tobacco, drugs, alcohol, etc.) will lead to optimal Physical Wellness.
Occupational Wellness is the ability to get personal fulfillment from our jobs or our chosen career fields while still maintaining balance in our lives. Our desire to contribute in our careers to make a positive impact on the organizations we work in and to society as a whole leads to Occupational Wellness.
Intellectual Wellness is the ability to open our minds to new ideas and experiences, adopting a growth mindset and striving to be more. The desire to learn new concepts, improve skills and seek challenges in pursuit of lifelong learning contributes to our Intellectual Wellness.
Community Wellness is the desire to connect with peers and have group interactions that collectively lead to community betterment. The deep commitment to helping others, the empathic ability to understand and connect with our community needs contributes to our Community Wellness.
Within these 8 dimensions, I have 3 fundamentals that are my core areas of intention. They are having a purpose, clean living and whole nutrition. These 3 are the underlying foundation to my lifestyle of wellness and kind of steer my ship. They are my north star help everything else fall into place for me. You may have your own 3 areas that you decide to focus on like, a certain relationship, your spiritual practice and self care…or nutrition, physical exercise and relationships…honestly, this varies for each of us.
But by having 3 solid areas that are the foundation, it helps to keep us on track but also to ground us through an integrative approach. An integrative approach simply means encompassing every area of our lives into this new method and lifestyle.
That means mind, body and soul working together to achieve a state of balanced wellness. Please understand that not everything will be balanced at once. Sometimes the scales tip more for balanced food and family, other times (like when there is a work deadline) the shift happens more for work and intellectual balance. The key to note here is that you understand where you are putting your energy and you choose to focus more in that area.
Conscious choices is the underlying secret ingredient to balancing wellness. Consciously choosing to do something means that you are actively pursuing extra effort in that area of life without neglecting the other important parts.
No matter if it’s a complete overhaul that you’re trying to achieve, or seeking to make a few simple changes to improve your quality of life, it’s vital that you identify any conditioned patterns in your behavior or thought patterns that may be hindering your progress.
Conditioned beliefs refer to the subconscious beliefs and attitudes that we form as young children (generally between the ages of 0-6). These patterns form as a direct result of our immediate environment, the people we come into contact with, and the attitudes of parents and caregivers as we grow up.
With help from my social community a while back, I put together this list to focus on if you really want to live your best life and it kind of sums up living a well rounded life:
Be grateful & let thankfulness temper all your thoughts
Build healthy relationships
Have a purpose
Start each day with a positive mindset
Love yourself
Get to know God and his word in a personal way
Take risks
Do the right thing even when no one is watching
Remember always that we are all in this together
Invest in people
If you’re ready to implement wellness as a lifestyle and really focus on the 8 dimensions of wellness, join my free FB How to do a Life Audit class tomorrow. The reason why conducting an audit and clarifying your personal goals and your why is so important lies within the innate power we all possess to create and manifest our desires. If you are not sure what these desires are, then how on earth can you expect to achieve them?
Drawing our attention inwards and aligning our actions with our intentions and core beliefs is a surefire way to start living our lives the way we want.
You can also download my "What Does Your Future Hold" and "Say No to BUT" worksheets to help you on your journey.
Becoming self-aware in relation to making major life changes is crucial. Without the self-awareness required to identify issues and potential threats to our personal “why” that might still be playing an active role in our lives, they will stay there, and any changes we might be striving for will result in failure.
There are so many ways that you can start on the path of auditing your life and creating wellness as a lifestyle, and it ultimately a very personal path that only you can clearly define. What works for one person may not work for another. So it’s important to remain self-aware and able to honestly identify issues when they arise in your life-examination and action plan.
So here are some final tips for you:
Be honest - this follows the rest - being honest and open with yourself about what it is you want to achieve, the practical resources available to you to do so, and the belief and drive you wish to cultivate is crucial if you are to see any lasting change.
Be consistent - if you plan on achieving change, you must consistently follow through on these plans. This means not skipping over elements of your wellness plan or half-heartedly completing part of what you wish to achieve.
Be self-aware and self-motivating - noticing when you begin to slack on goals or if you have let one aspect of your goals slide, there’s nothing quite as empowering as motivating yourself to get back on track!
Don’t lose heart - if something goes wrong (and it will) it’s vital that you don’t give up hope. Merely use this setback as a means to propel you forward and keep striving toward the goals you KNOW you’re capable of achieving.
Make sure to commit time to developing your own wellness plan and answer the questions relating to YOUR life and the elements you might wish to change, and really dig deep!
As always, I hope you find something on this blog or in my podcast that can help you proser and flourish in life! Remember, the more people you share your gratitude with, the deeper your practice will grow.
You can follow along on Instagram too @prosperandflourish!
Remember:
When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too. —Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
Follow along: