What is Wellbeing?

What is Wellbeing?

Firstly, Wellbeing is often talked about when looking to improve our life or reduce stress, but it isn’t about eating mung beans, meditation, yoga and thinking happy thoughts… it is about so much more. In other words, wellness is about your view of being ‘well’.

Occasionally, wellbeing can come with some pre-conceptions, or a sense of ‘woo woo’ and new age spirituality. However, times are changing and as more people are recognising, wellbeing is a personal and unique journey that each of us can benefit from.

How we achieve our wellbeing is up to us, but being well, doesn’t just happen on it’s own. On balance, our emotional, physical and mental health requires time and investment.

How do we achieve wellbeing?

So, how do we make that happen? Firstly, we make it happen by picturing the goal. Like anything in life we want to achieve, we need to develop a direction and a sense of motivation.

The key to achieving wellbeing is to improve our self-worth so that we prioritise ourselves.

In contrast, we are able to see value in working – it pays us money. In addition, we see value in shopping – it means we have food to eat. Also, we can see value in paying for the kids clubs, doing the ironing, cleaning the house etc.

What is your self worth?

Ask yourself this  “where do I put myself in my life priorities?”

Do you prioritise your children’s needs before your own? – or do you have equal value?

Do you prioritise your partners needs before your own? – or do you have equal value?

Do you prioritise work? – or do you have equal value?

Work life balance task

An interesting task I do with my clients, is a life priorities task. The client will write their life priorities on cards, including a card for their personal needs.The challenge is to lay the cards, in order of priority.
The result is often that they realise what they are putting first and what they want to prioritise, is out of balance. (which causes values-conflict, stress and a hold load of other stuff I’ll save for another article)

Often what we are doing, doesn’t match what we want to be doing. The problem is, that we’re too busy doing ‘it’ to do anything about ‘it’!

We often put the needs of ‘our life’ before our own needs. By ‘our life’ I mean all the things we believe we need to do. When we do have time to sit down, we’re don’t have the energy to invest in our self. However, if we work on our value system (and our beliefs) we can achieve great things.

So, in conclusion, wellbeing is so important for a happy life. In order to ‘be well’, it is about determining your value and self-worth.

10 ways to know where you put yourself in your life priorities.

1. You nearly always put others needs before your own.
2. Your response to most things is “OK” or “No…” other person nags “Oh, OK”.
3. Most evenings you are exhausted.
4. You feel your chest/jaw/shoulders tightening when you feel you have been pushed too far.
5. You prefer to do things for other people, rather than for you.
6. You feel guilty when you take time out for you. You feel guilty that you are not doing what you should be doing, that it’s your responsibility.
7. You worry that you’re not doing a good enough job – at work, at relationships, at being a mum, at keeping the house clean etc etc etc
8. You’ve tried to do mindfulness, but you can’t get you’re mind to switch off – thinking about all the things you’ve got to do.
9. You’ve tried to do mindfulness and just fallen asleep
10. You’ve got a facepack/face scrub in your cupboard that you’ve been meaning to do for a very long time…

Hmmm, so if you answered yes to more than 6 of this, maybe you’re beginning to recognise it would be helpful to work on your self-worth.

How to improve your self worth

The good news, it’s actually quite easy.

1. Put yourself in your diary – I mean actually put yourself in your diary. We all have a way to manage our time. So, I want you to schedule and write “ME TIME” in your diary or at least an hour a week. It can be one block or spread out in 15 mins blocks over the week.
2. Write exactly what you’re going to do in that time. By being specific about what you are going to do, will make it more achievable.
3. Visualise and picture how lovely it will be enjoying spending time on you, and recognise you deserve it. You do deserve it… because when you’re happy, trust me, those you love will be happy as well!
4. Commit to doing something for you and don’t let ‘stuff’ get in the way. Prioritise YOU! Why? Because you know you are more important than the ironing, or the cleaning, or the TV or whatever you feel you ‘should’ put before you.

Give it a go and see what comes up for you. Undoubtedly, you will enjoy the results, but after a while you may find your priorities shift. That’s life, our priorities will change. However, taking time out to make sure you are the one making the choices will help get you to where you want to be.

Want to read more – click here to read Reasons why your wellbeing should be important to you

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