As we are now half way through the year and we’ve passed the shortest day of the year in New Zealand, it’s a good time to take stock of our wellbeing and the goals that we may have set for ourselves for 2019.
By the time we reach mid-year we’ve we’ve already spent a lot of energy getting to where we are. We may have achieved some of what we’d set ourselves to accomplish, we’ve likely had a few unforeseen events occur that have altered our planned course, yet we can still feel that we have a mountain ahead of us to climb.
This is a good time to look back at just how much ground we’ve covered and to take inventory which means celebrating our milestones and what we have already achieved; making amendments to goals that have changed or are no longer achievable; setting new achievable goals and correcting our course of action if we need to.
TAKING YOUR PERSONAL WELLNESS INVENTORY
I would like to quote directly from “Mind Over Medicine” written by Lissa Rankin, MD, who has come up with the following categories of optimal health that can be used as an example for taking your personal wellness inventory.
- “Healthy Relationships, including a strong network of family, friends, loved ones, and colleagues
- A healthy, meaningful way to spend your days, whether you work outside the home or in it
- A healthy, fully expressed creative life, that allows your soul to sing its song
- A healthy spiritual life, including a sense of connection to the sacred in life
- A healthy sexual life, that allows you the freedom to express your erotic self and explore fantasies
- A healthy financial life, free of undue financial stress, which ensures that the essential needs of your body are met
- A healthy environment, free of toxins, natural disaster hazards, radiation, and other unhealthy factors that threaten the health of the body
- A healthy mental and emotional life, characterized by optimism and happiness and free of fear, anxiety, depression, and other mental health ailments
- A healthy lifestyle that supports the physical health of the body, such as good nutrition, regular exercise, adequate sleep, and avoidance of unhealthy addictions”
Compare your own life in regards to these categories, what matters to you and where you put yourself on this spectrum of optimal health. This will give you an indication of areas of your life that you can celebrate, and areas that you’d like to improve.
CELEBRATE WHAT’S WORKING
It can be helpful to put pen to paper and actually list the things that are working for you, the relationships that you cherish, the material things that you have attained and appreciate, the activities that enliven you, the goals or partial goals that you’ve already achieved this year, the health and wellness that you enjoy in your life right now.
The reason this step is important is because you mustn’t just treat yourself as continual self-improvement project. Yes, there are always things you can improve on no matter what stage of your life you are at, that’s evolution and you are meant to evolve. However, you also need to celebrate your victory’s, to stop and “smell the roses” once in a while.
So CELEBRATE! Celebrate what you’ve achieved in all facets of your life this year so far and actually DO SOMETHING to mark your milestone. It doesn’t have to be big, and it doesn’t have to cost a lot. Just to something in appreciation of yourself and where you’re at right now.
RE-SET YOUR GOALS
Write down those areas of your life that you’ve identified that you’d like to improve on and brainstorm some ideas of how you could start to implement those changes.
It’s important to make these “next-half-of-year-goals” achievable, so that you’re not sabotaging yourself at the outset by trying to accomplish too much. These goals are more of a gentle tweak of your initial goals rather than a full blown re-writing of your life, so go easy and make them attainable.
SET THE WHEELS IN MOTION
Whatever your newly adjusted goals are, just take one small step towards them daily and don’t think about it too much. The thinking part comes in the assessing, planning and setting of the goals according to what it is that YOU want, and what you consider to be achievable. So when it comes to the doing part, thought is not required.
If you lack motivation, it doesn’t matter, take that small step anyway. If you experience feelings of resistance, it doesn’t matter, take that small step anyway. Feelings of resistance come and go and they are not the decider of what you do, YOU ARE.
If, however, the New Zealand winter has paid you a wee visit with a virus, cold, illness or fatigue….Rest, Replenish, Rejuvenate and Restore. Sometimes our illnesses are mother nature’s way of giving us a compulsory break and if this is the case for you, park those goals. They’ll still be there when you have recharged again.
ALL THE BEST OF HEALTH AND WELLNESS TO YOU
Written by: Chrissy Diamond