How Do You Achieve Wellness?

So how do you achieve wellness? The technical definition of wellness can be described as:

“Optimally balanced health across multiple dimensions.”

The top level dimensions are commonly viewed as physical, mental, spiritual, social and lifestyle. Striking an optimal balance of health in each dimension can be confusing and too many people misunderstand the objective and generally fail to achieve Wellness if not crash and burn altogether. Here’s why:

The word “optimal” is being ignored. Optimal does not mean “evenly distributed,” not even a little. In fact, “optimal” can mean one thing to one person and the exact opposite to another--with good reason. For example, a college student or a mother of a newborn cannot remotely pursue her social and lifestyle potential for some time. The perfect balance for an entrepreneur is more like a jet airplane on the runway. The entrepreneur must be full throttle to get off the runway, perfect their trade, develop customers and get to a safe cruising altitude before tray tables come out and drinks are served.

Since the optimal balance is different and dynamic for each of us at different times of our lives, how do we define wellness for ourselves and where do we start pursuing it?

I’d argue that a great place to start is with the simple things. Here’s a modified version of one of my favorite quotes inspired by Jim Rohn, adapted a bit for the subject matter.

“Healthy things are easy to do... but easier not to.”

It’s really quite easy to take steps towards wellness. Common sense would suggest doing the easy things first too, which include avoiding the pitfalls. Any self improvement efforts towards a higher state of wellness is a positive thing as long as you’re not ignoring a major destructive imbalance in favor of improving aspects of lesser impact.

While this is not a complete list of pitfalls or recommendations, it presents three aspects in each of the five dimensions of your life that equate to fifteen things that you can reflect on to see if you’re doing enough of the easy stuff. I realize the list isn’t necessarily exciting, but these are the simple ones that can help you reach for higher and higher levels of wellness each year. You can literally get better with age!

This is my list of basics to keep in mind.

Physical Dimensions

- I will avoid processed foods & drink clean filtered water

- I will get off my butt and do something physically challenging each day

- I will avoid chemicals and seek preventive, natural and holistic therapies

Mental Dimensions

- I won’t let physical things and circumstances determine my happiness

- I believe learning experiences are priceless, so I’ll keep trying to succeed

- I will engage in more self-improvement and less mindless television

Social Dimensions

- I will avoid toxic people and seek healthy relationships

- I won’t try to change others, I will change myself first

- I will help others who can’t help themselves

Spiritual Dimensions

- I will pursue more things that are good use of my talent

- I will cut out what doesn’t feel right and align closer to my purpose

- I will take time each day to reflect, connect and express gratitude for my blessings

Lifestyle Dimensions

- I will always be happy with what I have and pursue all that I want

- I will live within my means, avoid debt, and pay cash whenever possible

- I will make more time to do things I love and not work all the time

My Self-Evaluation (Scale of 0-100):

Working on getting better every day...

John Valenty

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