“If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy and inspires your hopes.” – Andrew Carnegie
To celebrate World Wellbeing Week, let’s take a closer look at what overall wellbeing actually looks like.
We talk a lot about wellbeing, and how to achieve a positive and mindful life through focusing on the wellbeing of both yourself and others around you. However, which elements actually make up wellbeing? What parts of our lives must we focus on in order to achieve ultimately rounded and overall wellbeing?
Here are what we believe are the elements of wellbeing, and which parts of your life you might want to pay a little more attention to in order to achieve it…
1. Social Wellbeing
Social wellbeing refers not only to our friendships themselves but to how we nurture and value those friendships. When we are being conscious of our social health, we pay attention to the balance of all of our relationships and consider whether the people in our lives are good for us.
We are often afraid to confront issues with friends head-on or to be honest with ourselves about whether or not a relationship has run its course. These are hard things to tackle but ultimately lead to healthier social life.
Also, consider how you interact with your friends. As much as social media and instant messaging are fantastic for keeping in touch, nothing can replace the healing, connections, and potency of a real-life meeting. Consider if you are seeing people enough, and indeed, if you are seeing enough of those people who make you feel the most supported and the most at home.
2. Physical Wellbeing
Keeping your physical self in check is hugely important. Physical wellbeing has a significant effect on the other branches of overall wellbeing, as the care that you take of your body (exercise, rest, nutrition) directly affects your energy, your capacity for positivity, and your emotional resilience. But physical wellbeing isn’t just about being fit and healthy, it is also about listening to your body, learning its signals, and giving it what it needs when you ask for it, whether that be pizza or a 5-kilometre run!
3. Emotional Wellbeing
Emotional wellbeing can best be harnessed by the simple act of listening to your emotions and allowing yourself to feel them. It is ignorance towards your emotions, and suppression, which ultimately damage your emotional wellbeing. If you can, take a minute or two every day to reflect on how you are feeling, and to notice how you behave alongside them… that you may know your emotional self a little better.
4. Financial Wellbeing
Money may not be able to buy happiness, but it does make life a whole lot easier. Monetary anxiety is a huge contributor to stress in our culture, and so it is important to keep on top of these affairs. Sure, most of us would like to have more money, but I know that what really stresses me out, personally, is when I feel like I am not in control of my money; how I am spending on a daily basis, where it is coming from, where it is going. Be conscious of your finances to release stress.
5. Career Wellbeing
Whether you have high hopes for your career or are happy for it simply to be a means to an end, it is important to spend your days doing something that brings you satisfaction. It is so easy to get stuck in a job that you hate and can feel so hard to move on. But, as our jobs, in a large part, define us, and take up the majority of our time, pulling yourself out of a miserable occupation or place of work might be the most important thing you ever do to reach your goal of overall wellbeing.
6. Community Wellbeing
Are you connected with your community? Do you consider others around you? Do you feel like you are part of the world, or do you feel like you are watching it roll by? Community wellbeing is about feeling like there are places in which you belong and making a conscious effort to become an integral part of the communities around you.
7. Environmental Wellbeing
Environmental wellbeing refers to your relationship to the planet that we live on. How does the way you live, personally, affect the planet? Are you doing your best to take care of our habitat, or are you, on balance, damaging it? Although it is impossible to make zero impact on the Earth, it is our responsibility to live consciously in regard to our plant’s wellbeing. If we all did a little bit to help heal and preserve Earth, then the world would be a significantly healthier place!
How many of these elements of wellbeing do you think you have got under control? Are there things to work on? Can you think of any elements we may have missed?
By Chris Thomson
P.S. Whenever you are ready… here are 4 ways we can support your personal and professional Conscious Goals:
1. Access Free Live Meditations & Energy Transmissions
Inside our private Facebook Group, The Conscious Professional Mindful Community where Neil leads live weekly community events. Join now for free.
2. Learn To Meditate With Neil Seligman In Just 10 Days!
Zen in Ten, our flagship online course, is a ten-day mindfulness challenge for people who need to slow down.
3. Work With Neil One-To-One
See if a Conscious Coaching Partnership is right for you. Book a 15-minute discovery call with Neil here.
4. Bring The Conscious Professional To Your Business
See if The Conscious Professional training and coaching programmes are right for your team or workplace. Book a call here.
The Conscious Professional is dedicated to delivering inspiring corporate mindfulness and professional resilience training, conscious leadership coaching and workplace wellbeing services at the level of professional excellence. Thank you for following our blog.
