Wellness Matters

By Aleia Roberts Cont'd from page 4

Financial Wellness: Financial Wellness involves the process of learning how to successfully manage financial expenses. Money plays a critical role in our lives and not having enough of it can make a big impact. Financial stress is repeatedly found to be a common source of stress, anxiety and fear.

Occupational Wellness: Occupational wellness is about enjoying your occupational endeavors and appreciating your contributions. This dimension of wellness encourages personal satisfaction and enrichment in one’s life through work. Do you enjoy what you do for a living? Why or why not? What can you do to change things so that you feel more fulfilled? This doesn’t always require a new job – maybe just taking on some new responsibilities within your workplace.

Social Wellness: Social wellness helps you interact with others in social settings effectively and create a support network. This dimension of wellness allows you to not only develop encouraging relationships with peers, intimate relationships with romantic partners, and loving relationships with your family members. The first step in improving your wellness is reflection. Which of the 8 dimensions do you feel are areas in which you are content? Which dimensions need improvement? What steps can you take to improve in these areas? Who can you reflect on this with?

The next step is to set goals for yourself. Start small. If you need to work on your physical wellness, try setting the intention to stretch every morning when you wake up, incorporate a daily walk into your schedule, or develop an exercise routine that suits your schedule.

Step three is to start working on the goals you set. How are you going to achieve them? Who do you know that is excelling in these areas, and what can you learn from them?

The final step is to check in with yourself routinely. What progress have you made? Celebrate your wins, even the tiny ones. What dimensions are still lagging? What has blocked you from improving?