Each day in our lives is composed of thousands and thousands of tiny habits. We go through these habits automatically, without even thinking about most of them. And for the most part, this is an advantageous behavior. We don’t have enough brainpower to think about every single thing we do in our day. Habits free up mental energy for the tasks that do require intense thought, putting everything else on autopilot. However, the greatest power of habits is also their greatest danger. If we build up self-destructive habits, then they can be very difficult to break, even if these bad habits make us unhappy. Just look at the common bad habit of watching too much TV. We may know that watching TV is taking away time from pursuing more important goals, but if it’s become a habit, it’s comforting. The converse is also true — it’s painful to stop watching TV. And if you use that TV watching as a way to cope with something else you’re struggling with (as is usually the case), then it can go beyond a simple bad habit and turn into a vicious cycle: Each time you experience the thing that causes you stress, you turn to TV as a way to relieve the pain. This is where vicious cycles are born, the ones that keep us in self-defeating patterns. If we are to break free of repeating outcomes, we need a reflection practice to help trigger the small steps we need to change our self-destructive behaviors. The question is, how do we recognize our actions and their outcomes to break the cycle? Vicious Cycles vs. Reflection Practice As human beings, we all have our own vicious cycles. We have particular triggers that instigate specific destructive actions like procrastinating on important work, staying up too late binging Netflix when we should be sleeping or hitting the snooze button for the fifth time. They build into one another, killing our productivity, straining our relationships and beating down our self-esteem. It’s frustrating because we know they’re there. We experience their pain again and again, yet we can’t break the cycle. In fact, if a cycle is around long enough our minds become predisposed to automatically react a certain way when a trigger appears. Our actions in response will be the ones most commonly taken, even if they’ve always lead to an undesired result. Don’t worry, our brains aren’t trying to sabotage us. It has our best interests at heart. It’s utilizing a system of creating an automatic responses to make sure we have the resources available to react to events we aren’t familiar with. In nature, this process is essential for survival, but it comes with a catch: Our brains make no distinction between healthy and self-destructive behaviors. For example, maybe you use eating as a way to cope with stress. You know this isn’t good for you, leading as it does to weight gain and other health issues. But the deeper, more ancient part of your brain doesn’t make this distinction. It just experiences the threat (stress) and then grows accustomed to the way you use to cope (the pleasurable feeling of eating junk food). This builds into a vicious cycle, one that only solidifies the more you do it. To achieve what you never have, you must do what you’ve never done; you must achieve a mindset shift. To stop and reprogram these automatic reactions we must catch ourselves in the moment of a vicious cycle. This is extremely hard work. A reflection practice allows us to set up a plan to stop the automatic response when it’s triggered. We can reflect on many different levels, but the best place to start is in reflecting on the past year. This higher level view will help us see the bigger patterns we have, the good and the bad. Once we see them, we can find positive ways to change them. What do you think? Want to give it a try? Special Gift: A Guided Reflection Practice From the Inner Circle Start by looking back on the past year to figure out what went well, what didn’t, what you enjoyed and what you learned. With these insights, you can create your benchmark and lay the foundations for the plans that will help you design your best year yet. STEP 1 OUTCOME Complete this step to consolidate your learnings from the previous 12 months and create your baseline from which to plan your year ahead. With your reflection complete, you will know exactly where you are starting from. This clarity will help you set up the year ahead for success. ESTIMATED TIME: 20-30 minutes TOOLS NEEDED: End of Year Reflection Worksheet Why Reflect? The 10 Step framework to your Best Year Yet kicks off with reflection. This is one of the most important stages of the entire process — you can’t move forward until you’ve first looked back. Reflection is about the best way to consolidate everything you’ve done and learned in the past 12 months. If you put your foot on the gas without reflecting, you’ll miss out on all the insights and knowledge the past 12 months have gifted you. In turn, you’re more likely to make needless mistakes, move forward slower and even make the wrong decisions. That’s why reflection is a personal development practice promoted and practiced by some of the world’s top performers and athletes. They know it's an effective way to learn from their mistakes and set goals to make better choices and decisions in the future. It’s the reason football players spend weeks poring over every minute and analyzing every play of every game. By understanding who played well and why, they can make informed adjustments going forward and keep improving their performance. And you can do the same. It’s why reflection is an essential component of your best year yet. So let’s put this theory into practice with an Action Step that you’re going to like a lot. Action Items This reflection exercise is one of our favorites. It’s something we always do at the end of a year — and if a 13-week road map has been particularly significant, we’ll do it again. It’s a quick and easy way to sense check where you are and give yourself a springboard from which you can move toward gaining control. To help you reflect, we’ve prepared a worksheet for you to download. It’s called the End of Year Reflection worksheet and you can download a copy below. You’ll see from the worksheet that we’ve broken your reflection down into simple categories. For this step, you’re going to reflect on four things: • What brought you JOY• What brought you SUCCESS• What made you DISSATISFIED• And what FLOPPED! To make your reflection easy, grab: • Last year’s calendar• Any Self Journals you used over the past 12 months Go through them — week by week — and pull out any events you want to list on your End of Year Reflection. Your goal is to create your best year yet, so think about all categories — not just your work achievements. This might include: • Your relationships• Your health and wellbeing• Your personal growth• Your financial situation When you’re finished, look for your patterns. For example, is there a correlation between what brought you joy and success? Finally, analyze your results by answering the final two questions on your worksheet: 1. How far have you come over the past 12 months? When we’re hustling after goals and checking items off our to-do lists, we can spend too much time thinking about where we still have to go. As a result, we overlook and undervalue the distance we’ve already traveled. So take a few minutes to appreciate the progress you’ve made. 2. Get a sense of how you feel about your current trajectory If you were to change nothing, would you be happy with where you’d end up in 12 months time? For example: How would your physical health be? What about your business or your career? Or your relationships? Why You Should Fill Your Day with Energizing Activities To create your Best Year Yet, you have to fill it with things that bring you joy. When you craft your day-to-day around the things you enjoy and excel at, you start loving and being proud of your life. Why fill your day with stuff that drags you down if you don’t have to? Remember, you’ll always do your most important work, have the most fun and enjoy the most success when you’re motivated and energized. The opposite applies, too. Tasks that leave you dissatisfied absorb a disproportionately large amount of energy. You need to dig a lot deeper to get things done. What’s more, you’re more likely to procrastinate and waste time. You probably won’t do your best work. You’ll feel more drained at the end of the day, too. So for a better-performing year, you’ll need to proactively pay attention to the things that bring you joy and success. Swap out things that flopped and left you dissatisfied and full of anxiety. It’s a simple formula that lays the foundation for your best year yet. Inspire Others Big or small, we aspire to accomplish things in our lives that matter. We want to do more of what makes us happy, gain self-confidence and feel fulfilled with our life choices. We all struggle, find success and change as we grow. Make no mistake, those lessons can help others as much as you. Let what you’ve gone through help others on their own journey. The smallest insight can change a life!

In order to be your best self, you need to consider the many dimensions of wellness that contribute to holistic health. We often think of our “wellness” just in terms of physical health. If your body is healthy, then you’re well. But thinking in this way limits you from reaching your full potential as a person. While your physical health is essential, wellness is about so much more. In fact, there are seven commonly accepted dimensions of wellness in the health community. Let’s explore each dimension and how you can improve on them. Physical Wellness Your physical wellness is essential, make no mistake. If your physical health is less than optimal, your happiness, performance and overall well-being will suffer. It’s all too easy to neglect physical wellness in the pursuit of your goals, thinking of your body as just a machine whose output you can maximize. But in reality, your body does not work like this. You can push it for a bit, sure, but eventually it will break, resulting in lost productivity due to illness. Therefore, we recommend that you make your physical wellness a priority, never sacrificing it to get work done. To maintain a high level of physical wellness, you should make sure to do the following: Eat a Balanced Diet Proper nutrition is key to physical wellness. We know it’s tempting to live on a diet of processed carbs and caffeine when you’re rushing to finish a big project, but this isn’t a sustainable way to operate. Your specific diet will depend on your dietary preferences and amount of physical activity. But in general, we recommend eating a diet composed of whole foods, especially vegetables and fruits. Also, drink plenty of water, as it’s easy to get dehydrated without realizing it. Carry a water bottle with you to make this easy. Perform Daily Physical Activity We prefer “physical activity” to “exercise,” as the idea of exercising can conjure up images of running on a treadmill or lifting weights for many. While these are fine forms of physical activity, you don’t have to limit yourself to them. Do something that you actually enjoy, whether it’s dancing, bike riding, kayaking or just taking walks outside. The goal is to stay active on a daily basis — the details matter less than you think. Get Regular Medical Checkups No one likes going to the doctor, but going to annual checkups is a good practice to get into, even if you feel perfectly healthy. Find a doctor you can talk with openly, discussing any health concerns or questions you have. Get Enough High Quality Sleep Sleep is perhaps the easiest area of the dimensions of wellness to neglect. The less you sleep, the more time you have to get work done, right? Wrong. While sleeping less will give you more total time to work, the quality of your work will start to suffer if you’re not sleeping enough. Furthermore, not getting enough sleep can wreak havoc on your immune system and physical recovery, resulting in illness that slows you down even further. Therefore, you need to prioritize sleep, planning to get at least seven to eight hours per night — more if you’re doing a demanding exercise routine. You should also ensure that the sleep you do get is high quality. Don’t lie in your bed with your phone or computer until you drift off to sleep. Rather, give yourself time to unplug and relax before bed. If you’re having trouble falling asleep, try making your room darker and make sure you aren’t drinking caffeine or alcohol too close to when you go to bed. Emotional Wellness Moving on to the next dimension, we have emotional wellness. This aspect of dimensions of wellness is one that people discuss fairly often, but it still doesn’t get as much attention as physical wellness. This is a shame, because your mental health is just as important as your physical health. Whether you’re struggling with everyday issues such as stress or something more serious such as chronic depression, neglecting your emotional wellness can make it difficult for you to do your best work. Here are some things to keep in mind to boost your emotional wellness: Share Feelings Talking to someone else about how you feel can be difficult, but it’s often the first step to improving your mental health. It’s easy to keep how you feel bottled up inside, not realizing what you’re struggling with until you discuss it aloud with someone else. Monitor Your Self-Esteem Self-esteem is crucial as an entrepreneur. You have to believe in yourself in order to provide a strong foundation for your business activities. Therefore, you should keep an eye on your self-esteem. Watch out for negative self-talk. Everyone doubts themselves at times — that’s natural. But you can’t let it stop you from getting out there and doing your best work. Spiritual Wellness People often associate the term “spiritual” with religion, but the two are not the same thing. You can be spiritual without being religious. The spiritual dimension of your life may involve a religious faith, but it can also just be the values and principles that guide your life and work. When you have high spiritual well-being, it means that your daily actions are in line with your larger beliefs, religious or not. To keep your spiritual wellness up along with the other dimensions of wellness, here’s what we recommend: Practice Self-Reflection Regular self-reflection will help you monitor whether your daily actions are in line with your larger beliefs. You can do a variety of activities, but the one we most strongly recommend is keeping a journal. Daily journaling will help you track patterns in your thoughts and feelings, as well as clarifying and reaffirming what your beliefs are. Try Meditation You may associate meditation with religions such as Buddhism, but meditation can benefit you no matter what your religious beliefs are. It doesn't have to be long or elaborate, either. Just taking a few minutes each day to sit still in silence and clear your mind will give you a greater sense of peace and a higher degree of focus. To learn more about how meditation can benefit you and how to get started, check out our meditation guide. Social Wellness Social wellness acknowledges that humans are not solitary creatures by nature. Even if you’re more on the introverted side, you still need to connect with other people in order to maintain your well-being. When your social wellness is high, you have a series of strong relationships with family members, friends, coworkers and your broader community. You have a network of people you can depend on in times of adversity, knowing that you don’t have to go it alone. Here are some things you can do to nurture your social wellness: Maintain Healthy Relationships Healthy relationships are built on trust, respect and kindness. They’re the relationships that build you up, not tear you down. And they’re balanced. If one relationship is consuming your time at the expense of other relationships, it’s definitely not healthy. Make Time for People It’s easy to get so focused on your work that you don’t spend time with your family, never go out with your friends and isolate yourself from your community. We’re all about being focused on your business, but it shouldn’t be at the expense of your relationships. This sort of sacrifice will only hurt you in the long-run; there’s no point being successful if it makes you lonely and isolated. Intellectual Wellness Just like muscles get weak if you don’t use them, your mind can atrophy if you don’t keep it engaged. If you find yourself bored all the time, then it can be a sign that your intellectual wellness is low. To keep your intellectual wellness high, we recommend these things: Do Stimulating Mental Activities Keeping your mind engaged is just a matter of finding the right activities. You can do classic activities like logic puzzles, crosswords or sudoku. But you can also have conversations with people who challenge you intellectually or read books that offer you new ideas. Always Keep Learning Lifelong learning is essential for intellectual wellness. It doesn’t matter so much what you learn — just pick something that interests you. It could be reading about a subject that you want to learn more about or teaching yourself a new skill. Learning something new engages your brain like nothing else, forming new connections as your knowledge grows. Environmental Wellness Environmental wellness means maintaining a harmonious relationship with the earth. It’s an acknowledgement that humans do not exist separately from nature; we are part of a larger ecological system. Environmental wellness ties into spiritual, emotional, and physical wellness, for you can’t have the others at a truly high level if you’re isolated from the environment. To maintain environmental wellness, here’s what we suggest: Get Outside Being out in nature can help you feel more at peace, not to mention boosting your mood. Sunshine and fresh air do wonders for your mental health, and being outside is also a chance to bring some physical activity into your day. You don’t even have to get outside of the city to experience the benefits of the outdoors. Just walking around in a local park will work as well. Live Sustainably Sustainable living means being aware of how the things you do and the products you consume affect the earth. It can start with activities such as recycling and extend into reducing your overall resource consumption. For example, you might bring your own reusable bags to the store or replace your paper towels with cloth ones. Occupational Wellness Finally, we have occupational wellness. This final category of the dimensions of wellness relates to how your career fits into your overall life. When you have a high degree of occupational wellness, your work is not disconnected from your life, and it doesn’t conflict with your values. Rather, it fits into your larger vision for your life, supporting the things you want to achieve. Of course, the need to make money can sometimes be more urgent that finding the most fulfilling career possible. Therefore, we suggest viewing occupational wellness as something to aspire towards, especially when starting your own business. That being said, it’s still possible to maintain occupational wellness even in a job that isn’t the most exciting or fulfilling. Here are some strategies we suggest: Have a Plan for Your Career It’s impossible to plan your career from start to finish, as you never know where life will take you. But having a general vision for your career can help you make sure that you don’t get stuck in an unfulfilling job that you’re only doing for the money. Furthermore, having a larger vision will help you maintain motivation if you are in a job you dislike, knowing that you’re working toward a future occupation that’s more in line with what you want to do. Think Beyond Money You deserve to be paid well for the excellent work you do, but you should also make sure that you don’t let money blind you to the other aspects of your job that matter more for life satisfaction. If you’re doing a job that doesn’t align with your values, is boring, or is excessively stressful, it will start to wear on you after a while. It’s possible to put up with a bad job in exchange for a large paycheck, but we don’t recommend it. Over the long term, it will harm other dimensions of wellness, particularly your emotional, spiritual and physical wellness. Be Well in All Dimensions of Wellness We hope you now understand that dimensions of wellness are about so much more than just diet and exercise. It extends into a variety of areas of your life, all of which are interdependent. To live a happy life and fulfill your potential, all the dimensions of wellness must be in balance. Keeping them in balance is a lifelong journey, but you should now have the information you need to take the first steps.

Are you struggling to find inner peace and happiness? Do you feel overwhelmed, stressed, or anxious? Are you failing to meet your goals even though you feel like you’re working 24/7? If you answer yes to any of these questions, you probably have too much on your mind. Feeling overwhelmed is a common complaint and a prototypical roadblock to achieving personal and professional success. Instead of feeling clear-headed and using your time to accomplish goals effectively, you’re wasting much of your mental capacity worrying about the past or future and devoting your precious attention to the wrong people or activities. More companies and people are fighting for your attention than ever before. If you’re not careful, your happiness, goals, and relationships will suffer from these distractions. You can begin to address this feeling of overwhelm by learning to be more mindful. Mindfulness will help you achieve inner happiness, peace, and calm while reducing your stress and anxiety. Additionally, it will help you accomplish goals and overcome challenges through better self-reflection and self-awareness. Mindfulness starts with a mantra, and your mantra can be one of the insightful mindfulness quotes in this article. These quotes are great for condensing wisdom into just a few words and offering insights from the greatest thinkers in the world of mindfulness. If you want to slow things down, enjoy your life, and focus on the people and activities that are truly important to you, read these quotes and do your best to incorporate their lessons into your life. “Mindfulness practice means that we commit fully in each moment to be present; inviting ourselves to interface with this moment in full awareness, with the intention to embody as best we can an orientation of calmness, mindfulness, and equanimity right here and right now.” – Jon Kabat-Zinn We start the list with this quote from Jon Kabat-Zinn because it gives us a good definition of mindful living. He reminds us to focus on our present experiences in each and every moment and to do so in a calm and thoughtful way. Many people get distracted by thoughts about the past or the future far too often. To make matters worse, they’re usually focused on negative aspects of their experiences—like failures or losses they’ve experienced and worst-case scenarios of possible outcomes. Instead, try to enjoy and experience the present moment as often as possible. Additionally, you can try to find a meditation practice that works for you. If you want to reap the benefits of mindfulness, practice staying calm and alert in the present moment. “The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you are attentive, you will see it.” – Thích Nhat Hanh Mindfulness relies heavily on experiencing the present moment. In this quote, Thich Nhat Hanh explains that happiness lies within that present moment. If you aren’t experiencing the actual moment, you won’t be able to enjoy it. But once you slow down and focus on what’s happening in front of you, it’s much easier to appreciate the marvels of life. Pay attention to your surroundings and focus on appreciating the present moment to experience more joy and happiness in your daily life. “We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.” – The Buddha Gautama Buddha understood that we are what we think. The way in which we think is very important. Staying in the present moment is a great way to avoid negative thoughts and to accept positive ones by appreciating our current experiences. But we can’t always avoid thinking about the past or future. So, when we remember suffering or pain, it’s best to accept, forgive, or think about ways of creating better alternatives in the future. When we remember positive experiences, it’s best to address them with gratitude and thankfulness rather than longing or wishing things were the way they used to be. Follow The Buddha’s advice by understanding that your thoughts influence the person you become. If you want to experience more happiness and gratitude in your life, your thoughts must reflect those values. “The most fundamental aggression to ourselves, the most fundamental harm we can do to ourselves, is to remain ignorant by not having the courage and the respect to look at ourselves honestly and gently.” – Pema Chodron A major component of mindfulness is self-awareness. In order to enjoy life and get the most out of it, you need to understand which circumstances cause you to be unhappy or unfulfilled. If you pay attention to your emotions and your thoughts, you can start to pinpoint sources of stress and pain, and begin to work through these issues. It’s important, however, to make sure you’re not too hard on yourself. Accept that you’re not perfect and that you have flaws. Rather than being upset by past behavior, learn from it and use the present moment to improve. Self-awareness is an excellent tool for self-improvement. Follow Pema Chodron’s advice and you’ll progress faster than you’d imagine. “When we get too caught up in the busyness of the world, we lose connection with one another - and ourselves.” – Jack Kornfield This advice from Jack Kornfield goes hand-in-hand with living in the present moment. Most people are constantly bombarded by distractions at the office—from notifications on their phones to colleagues stopping by their office—in addition to their already overwhelming lifestyle outside of work. This is where self-awareness can really help. By understanding what’s truly important to you and knowing how to move toward your goals, you can eliminate stressful stimuli and tasks that make you feel productive but don’t actually accomplish much. Additionally, avoiding unnecessary external distractions helps you slow down, appreciate the present moment, and feel like you are living your life on your own terms. Ultimately, you’ll have much better control over your daily life and become happier because of it. “The past has no power over the present moment.” – Eckhart Tolle This inspirational quote from Eckhart Tolle reminds us that we don’t want to live in our heads. We can’t change the past and the past can’t change the present moment. Unfortunately, too many people dwell on the past rather than appreciating the life they have in front of them. While there is value in learning from past mistakes, there is no reason to constantly relive negative feelings. Only you can determine how to live your current life. If you want to live a life of peace and happiness, you need to let go of the past so you can focus on enjoying the life that is in front of you. “When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive - to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.” – Marcus Aurelius Many people believe that happiness comes from extreme experiences, lavish possessions, and grand accomplishments, but that’s not the case. Happiness comes from enjoying and appreciating what you have right now at this very moment. It’s easy to take life for granted. Don’t wait until something is gone to finally realize how lucky you are to have it. Instead, feel gracious for life’s precious gifts each and every day. This includes life itself. Living a mindful life means appreciating how precious it really is. Every day when you wake up, take a moment to think about the opportunities the day offers you. “Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.” – Mother Teresa Similar to the last quote, Mother Teresa encourages us to appreciate the small things in life. Every gesture, regardless of its magnitude, makes an impact on the world. Even the smallest animals, insects, and plants play a role in the ecosystem of the world. Every piece of a system has to function properly for it to work correctly. Failure with one small part can disrupt the entire system. By understanding this, you can become more mindful of the small things around you. Don’t take them for granted. Appreciate their contribution, however big or small. You’ll be more aware of your surroundings, in turn improving your mindfulness. “The renowned seventh-century Zen master Seng-ts’an taught that true freedom is being ‘without anxiety about imperfection’.” – Tara Brach Too many people strive for perfection. This isn’t always a bad thing—people create great things because of it. But it can be very hurtful to a person’s wellbeing when used in the wrong way. Embrace imperfections. A crooked nose, a tilted smile, or thinning hair are physical attributes that don’t need to be fixed; they make you who you are It’s better to accept and own your imperfections than to wish them away. Most pain and suffering occur because you create it. If you can learn to accept your imperfections instead of seeking perfection, you’ll be a lot happier and freer. “A good friend who points out mistakes and imperfections and rebukes evil is to be respected as if he reveals the secret of some hidden treasure.” – Dalai Lama Self awareness is crucial to mindfulness, but external feedback is equally helpful. If you can find a friend who will be open and honest with you, without being mean or rude, your life will improve drastically. The Dalai Lama provides us with good advice by reminding us of this truism. It’s not always easy to see our own mistakes or flaws, so having someone in your life to tactfully and productively point them out can be extremely valuable. If you already have a friend like this, consider yourself lucky and be grateful for them. Becoming more mindful is a worthy endeavor. And one of the best ways to do it is through conscious breathing exercises like mindfulness meditations. But even just reading and thinking through these mindfulness quotes will help. By knowing what it takes to become more mindful, you’re already on your way. Heed the advice of these great thought leaders to become a calmer, happier person with less stress and anxiety. Other quote articles you might like… 15 Quotes About Forgiveness That Can Set You Free 40 Intimacy Quotes That Will Leave You Feeling More Connected 18 Entrepreneur Quotes To Keep You Motivated 50 Quotes That Inspire You To Think Bigger, Achieve More, and Enjoy Today 52 Gratitude Quotes That Inspire An Attitude Of Gratitude

Feeling overwhelmed, unhappy and stressed are common feelings experienced by most adults these days. There’s so much going on that it seems impossible to achieve peace of mind. People juggle numerous and sometimes conflicting priorities: the need to improve performance at work, spend quality time with family, exercise, keep the house clean, run errands, nurture friendships, read books, volunteer in their community, meditate, keep on top of emails -- the list goes on. Then there are the unexpected distractions: people dropping by the office at work, family members asking for help with chores and errands, friends reaching out to make plans or ask for help, and the constant onslaught of news and media messages and advertisements. Unfortunately, most of these distractions stand in the way of personal wellness, which is the state of being in and striving for good health. Although wellness is often conflated with physical health, there are actually 7 dimensions of wellness: Physical Wellness Emotional Wellness Social Wellness Intellectual Wellness Spiritual Wellness Environmental Wellness Occupational Wellness If you want to live a healthy and happy life with low levels of emotional and physical stress, you must strive to nurture and balance each of the 7 dimensions of wellness. It may seem daunting on top of all of the other demands on your time and attention, but it is possible to improve each aspect by making small changes to your current lifestyle. The 7 Dimensions of Wellness: 1. Physical Wellness Physical wellness refers, of course, to your body’s health. It is extremely important to strive for optimal physical wellness because the effects go beyond your body and impact your mind, emotions and overall well-being. Attaining physical wellness allows you to engage in a slew of physical activities, which provide more opportunities for enjoyment. You’ll also be able to perform day-to-day activities, errands, and chores easier. And you’ll likely appreciate the way your body looks, performs, and feels. But physical activity does more than keep your body in shape. It helps your memory and overall cognitive performance, too. Many studies suggest that the prefrontal cortex and medial temporal cortex—which control thinking and memory—are larger in people who exercise versus those who don’t. Additionally, when your body is put through intense exercise, it releases endorphins, which are chemicals that reduce stress and anxiety and improve self-esteem and sleep, among many other benefits. If you want to achieve optimal physical wellness, follow the following guidelines: Monitor nutrient intake. Use a macronutrient calculator to determine how many calories you should eat every day and do your best to hit those numbers. Also, maintain a balanced diet, limit alcohol intake, reject unhealthy drugs, and spend time in the sunlight each day. Exercise. Even exercising for 20 minutes every day will produce considerable benefits. A combination of strength training and cardiovascular exercise is ideal. Pay attention to your body. Get regular checkups. If you’re experiencing pain or something doesn’t feel right, go to the doctor. Learn to listen to your body and identify the signals that it is sending you. When something is wrong, instead of powering through, do your best to resolve the issues. Get adequate sleep. Growth and nourishment are only attainable if you allow your body to properly recover. Strive to get between seven and nine hours of sleep every night to ensure you get enough rest. Physical wellness is possibly the most important dimension to get right. Improve your physical well-being and you’ll notice a substantial improvement in your overall health and wellness. 2. Emotional Wellness Emotional wellness pertains to your ability to recognize, process, and express your different emotions. Emotions are signals from your brain and body to your conscious mind that indicate how certain situations and stimuli make you feel. There are two reasons you need to express your emotions: Release. Too often, people withhold emotions to hide them from others. Unfortunately, these emotions build up and create stress and anxiety. If they aren’t released in a healthy way, your control over them diminishes and you risk using words or actions you later regret. Awareness. If you don’t allow yourself to express a range of emotions, you make it harder to recognize the signal. Repressing, or pushing aside an emotion, does not serve your long-term wellness. Many people assume they will deal with a (negative, mostly) emotion later, which often doesn’t happen, leaving that emotion to become an emotional burden on the bearer. Expressing your emotions helps you to recognize and deal with them, leading to a clearer frame of mind and better overall happiness.  The key to emotional wellness is to simply recognize and process your emotions, then act to change or eliminate circumstances that lead to negative feelings. If you’re unhappy with your own behavior, work on changing it. If you’re frustrated with the way you’re being treated, let the person know. If they won’t change, see if there’s a way to remove them from your life. If you want to improve your emotional wellness, the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point recommends these tips: Tune-in to your thoughts and feelings. Cultivate an optimistic and positive attitude. Seek and provide support from and to a friend, family member, or therapist who will listen without judging. Practice stress management techniques (Meditation). Discover your specific stress relievers. Forgive yourself and develop self-acceptance. Withholding or repressing your feelings is a destructive habit. If you want to improve your emotional well-being, express and recognize your emotions so you can take corrective action. 3. Social Wellness The quality of your relationships and social interactions plays a major role in your overall health. Your ability to interact with others, maintain meaningful and healthy relationships, feel connected to people you care about, and contribute to the well-being of other people make up the components of your social wellness. Both the quantity and quality of your social relationships affect your mental health, physical health, and mortality risk. Conversely, captors successfully use social isolation to torture prisoners. Human existence and survival are based on cooperation, and the mind and body are adversely affected without it. Many people struggle to make and nourish new friendships, and this becomes increasingly difficult with age. You can improve your social well-being by doing the following: Join groups that meet consistently—e.g. Adult-league sports teams, book clubs, running groups, volunteer and community organizations, etc. This offers group interaction and a pool of new people to meet. Befriend new people. These can be people from the groups you join, coworkers, your friends’ friends, or anywhere else you can meet new people. Nourish your existing relationships. Text your friends and family to see how they’re doing. Schedule time to hang out with people you care about. Make them feel good with a compliment or small gift. Research, study and learn how to improve your social skills. Developing your social wellness will have long-lasting benefits for your health, wellness, and overall happiness. Follow the advice above to feel the various positive impacts it’ll have on your life. 4. Intellectual Wellness The intellectual dimension of wellness is represented by lifelong learning and creative use. New ideas and creative expression stimulate and strengthen your mind. Increasing your knowledge will also help you navigate the world, increasing your opportunities for success. That makes it easier to enjoy life and improve the other dimensions of your wellness. Like a muscle, the “use it or lose it” principle applies to the brain. Here are some tips to improve your intellectual wellness: Learn new ideas. Read books, take classes, and attend workshops, seminars, or classes. Seek out and spend time with smart and interesting people who challenge you intellectually. Create things. Find activities that challenge you to create new ideas, artwork, objects, systems, etc. Solve puzzles. Play games like crossword puzzles. Work with numbers. Find better ways to get things done. Stimulating mental activities are necessary for intellectual improvement. Don’t let your brain go to waste. Keep it sharp and experience the wonderful benefits. 5. Spiritual Wellness Your spiritual well-being doesn’t have to rely on religion or a god, but it can. Ultimately, it’s about having a core set of principles or values that you look to for moral and spiritual structure and guidance. As GRCC explains, “It encompasses a high level of faith, hope and commitment to your individual beliefs that provide a sense of meaning and purpose.” No matter what happens to you, you can always turn to your spirituality for guidance. GRCC also mentions that “A spiritually well person seeks harmony between what lies within as well as the forces outside.” It’s about connecting your body and mind with the outside world—ideally nature. To find your spirituality, you need to dig deep. Here are some tips to help you spiritually: Be fully present as often as possible. Spend time in nature. Spend time alone to think deeply. Meditate. Determine your values and do everything you can to live by them. A spiritual person maximizes harmony between themselves and their beliefs. By appreciating the outside world, taking time to calmly think, and acting in congruence with your principles, you’ll become much more spiritually aware and internally peaceful. 6. Environmental Wellness It’s important for you to do your best to make the world a better place. Improving the planet and the lives of others also make you feel better and improve your well-being. You can incorporate some of the following tactics and encourage others to do so as well: Conserve precious resources. Water, air, and farmland are great examples. Try not to use more than necessary and do everything you can to protect them from destruction or pollutants. Eliminate paper waste. With electronics these days, you can practically eliminate all paper waste. Stop junk mail and stop printing things unnecessarily. Recycle. Most municipalities require or offer recycling services. Do your best to use it fully and correctly. Environmental wellness has grown tremendously over the last several decades. People are doing so much to make the world a better place. For that reason, there are thousands of other ways you can help the planet that we haven’t listed here. Find people and organizations that you can get behind and see how you can help. 7. Occupational Wellness Lastly, you won’t be happy and fulfilled if you can’t find meaning in the work you do. Occupational or vocational wellness is about finding passionate work that you enjoy. But don’t worry, you can find passion in many different career fields. In professor Morten Hansen’s book, Great at Work, he found that there are six ways to derive passion from your work. Task passion - finding pleasure in what you do. Achievement passion - finding pleasure in accomplishing goals, regardless of the tasks. Creative passion - enjoyment from solving problems and creating new things. People passion - enjoyment from working and interacting with the people around you. Learning passion - finding pleasure in an environment that challenges you to keep learning. Competence passion - enjoying something because you’re good at it. As you can see, you don’t need to change the world to enjoy your work. But it is important that you do find something that fulfills you. Otherwise, your moods will worsen and your happiness will deplete. Here are some different ways you can improve your occupational wellness: Determine whether you are happy at your job. If you are, there’s no reason to fix something that isn’t broken. Of course, you can still continue seeking better work and opportunities You can search for new positions within your company. You can try to obtain different tasks while in your current position. You can look for employment at a different company. You can start a “side hustle” that one day could become your full-time work. You can start your own business or start freelancing. Some of these strategies require significant effort. But if they bring you better occupational wellness, they’re well worth the effort. If you are actively working on your intellectual wellness, it can help you find different areas that you may be passionate about. Often, we take a job because we like a specific field, only to realize later in life that we’re more interested in something completely different. Continual learning will help you find your true interests. *** Achieving a healthy quality of life is highly dependent on the seven dimensions of wellness. If you truly deem these dimensions to be important, you should focus on applying the tips outlined above to improve your overall well-being. Use the strategies provided to create daily habits that ensure you’re improving in each area of wellness. By doing so, your health, happiness, and well-being are sure to improve drastically.

Do you know why finding your why matters? It's one of the most daunting questions we can be asked. "Why are you doing that?" It always seems to catch us off guard and the immediate response that pops into our head, "Because it's what I'm supposed to do." annoys us more than helps us. The answer is one that immediately instills doubt in our actions and once that emotion is unleashed there's no telling where our thoughts will take us. It takes some effort to engage with finding your why, and the answer can be ever changing but when we can answer the question "Why are you doing that?" It becomes the ultimate power boost to our resilience. So, how do we go about finding our why?   Up Life's River Without a Why Let's be honest, achieving in life is hard, it is really HARD. The longer we engage with it the harder it becomes. If we aren't prepared it will slam into us and leave us reeling. When that happens it's so easy to feel out of control like we've lost our footing. With our foothold lost life becomes a wild river rapid, dragging us along it's tributaries until we reach a final destination we never wanted to go towards, and are left to wonder how we got there. To avoid this we have to keep our bearings and maintain our direction. Some specific tools in life help us do that. Aspiration is our canoe, confidence is our life vest, knowledge is our skill on the water, and a why? Well, that's our oar. We can survive the rapids without it, our boat will keep us moving, our vest will keep us afloat when we fall, and our skill will help us survive in whatever way is necessary.   The greatest challenges do not come from without, they come from within ourselves. The one thing we cannot do without an oar is steer. We can't direct ourselves down the paths and parts of the river we want to be on. Without an oar we are at the mercy of where the river flows the hardest. The odds of being on the path we truly desire is not in our favor if we don't have a why. Navigating the rapids of life this way all but leaves the final destination to chance.   The Winding River of Finding your Why One thing is at the core of finding your why, this is your decision making. When you make a decision it is the manifestation of why. Refuse to decide and it's the same as not having a why, decide in haste and the river will be just as unpredictable as if you have no why at all. To navigate properly, you must pay attention, you must engage with the flow of the river. Only through watching for the streams and pathways that will lead you in the direction you want to go will you achieve the results you want. To find your why, the reason that in this moment, you do what you do. You have to look, you have to engage, and you have to decide. That decision, to engage with your journey down the river will reward you, or it will punish you. You will feel the violent push or embracing pull of your why as a result of the decision you made.   To Find Your Why: Make a decision in your life. Reflect on how the decision made you feel. Ask yourself, did you feel pushed away, or pulled towards it. The more decisions you make, the more you come to understand your why. The better you can travel the river.    Your Why Matters It's powerful to put your why into words. To find those words are an entirely different matter. Few things are as the reason why we do things. Our motivations and decisions are wide and varied, but even with all this variation we will always find someone next to us on the river. When we meet this person we can help them or we can hurt them. They can heed our help, or they can ignore us. We encourage you, to help and to heed. 

What do you do when you're feeling overwhelmed? Feeling overwhelmed is a common problem that can strike at any moment. As demands roll in from all directions this productivity killing monster often rears it's ugly head. At first it's not so bad. We feel busy, challenged, maybe even a little excited that we have so much to do. There's a catch though. If busy goes on for too long or if tasks pile up too high the excitement quickly turns into despair, action into inaction. But what can we do? The answer is simple in theory, but nuanced in practice. What we can do is ask ourselves questions. It's important to ask questions because the right question and the right answer can change our entire perception of something challenging in an instant. It's likely you already engage in this practice. We all tend to ask ourselves questions about challenges we face, even if we don't realize it. It's the caliber of these questions and what they focus on that means the difference between getting unstuck or falling deeper into the trap that overwhelm sets for us. Surely, at this point you're asking yourself, "Well then, what's the right question?" Good question, but the bad news is there's no single ultimate question we can ask ourselves to get the answer every time. Rather it's the practice of exploring multiple questions and answers that is key in the fight against overwhelm. The good news is we can use other people's trigger questions, ones that help them defeat overwhelm, to jump start our own practice! An Examination of Tim Ferriss' Tactics shared in Tribe of Mentors In his most recent book Tribe of Mentors, Tim focuses on the idea of asking questions. In the book he shares that it was manifested out of a need to fight the monster of overwhelm in his own life. It was during a period of self-reflection that he started to journal about what he wanted to do and how he wanted to grow as a person from 40 onward. The list grew and grew until it became completely overwhelming! How was he going to accomplish all this? Particularly the things he'd struggled with his whole life... overwhelm began to tighten it's grip. In the book he shares that he then asked himself the single question he uses to trigger a perspective shift. "What would this look like if it were easy?" According to the book, the ultimate answer for him was: I would have a whole tribe of mentors to call upon when facing the biggest challenges on my new journey. With this the looming cloud of overwhelm began to dissolve, and he set himself to breaking down tasks using this new perspective. When we're overwhelmed there's an inescapable feeling of everything being so hard! We create a narrative in our minds that the only way we can get through is to struggle. The cycle of this narrative reinforces a perception that individual tasks are a singular insurmountable thing. His question is powerful because it automatically leads us to challenge this core aspect of feeling overwhelmed. What the question shows us is the size of the task isn't what's overwhelming. Rather it's our approach to solving it that creates this perception. So the next time you feel overwhelmed try and ask yourself: What would this look like if it were easy? See where it leads you! Community Contribution Whether your questions cycle you deeper into overwhelm, or they're triggering questions that help you climb out of the hole-- they are valuable! Examining our questions and seeing what others ask themselves gives us insight on improving our own questioning practices.  

Change your mindset and break through barriers! Subversion of ideas is a powerful tool we can use to turn a negative into a positive in almost every situation. When it comes to self-worth and confidence this can be a monumentally beneficial and imperative practice. The social landscape we live in is littered with confidence destroying landmines from social media sites to youtube, and everything in between. The ability for anyone to tear us down with various degrees of anonymity is higher than ever. To combat this some of the worst social faux pas have evolved in a way that allows them to be more healthy and even absolute necessities for maintaining balance in the world today.   Ego is the Enemy but Achievements are Best Friends Achievements are now more important than experience in many circles.  Whether it's in the workforce, with friends, or in relationships- responsibilities are no longer so clearly defined. Instead, as the popular expression goes we all wear "many hats". Meaning anything goes and all that really matters is results. We live in a time when we can find anything we need to get something done, for free online or for cheap. Specialty skills are still valued but more and more the ability to quickly learn a new skill and apply it, trumps all. This has lead to the trend we see, where the most relationship building information you can share is your achievements. This turns the aversion of ego on its head as our ability to tout our achievements can be the difference between getting the job, making the friend, or helping someone in need. Achievements are what give us an air of authority in someone else's mind. Today's environment values titles less and less, moving the perception of what provides value towards those who don't just problem-solve, but problem-find. We shouldn't let this get us down though! Removing titles is such an empowering transition for society! It shows we can recognize that knowledge or at least the acquisition of knowledge is becoming a universal commodity. The bottom line is that now more than ever, we can be whatever we want to be. The phrase "If you can think it, you can do it." is not just something we tell to our kids to bolster their confidence. It a pure and powerful truth. That can make all the difference in your life if you sit down to pursue what you really want.   Grab your Journal! What do you want to do? No limits Ask yourself. What have you done? Now, look up what it takes to accomplish one of your top items on the first list. How much of what you've already achieved can be applied to this what you want? Make a list of the achievements you have left to fill in so you can get what you want. Take charge! Get out there and build out a goal to move you towards your desired achievement! Nothing can stop you, but you! Forget about the requirements someone laid down decades ago as a gated entry to what you really want. They no longer exist! Tout your achievements, and you will go far! Vanity doesn't Satisfy but Personal Truth Boosts Self-affirmations have become a necessity for anyone making their way through social structures. Personal branding continues to grow as one of the most powerful forms of advertising, no matter the type of business, a non-profit organization, or government agency.  We are drawn to the pure influence of seeing everyday people we can connect with or aspire to be. To tap into these incredibly powerful forms of growth for ourselves, our businesses, and our dreams we embrace vanity. From selfies, to live streams we open ourselves and our lives up to millions of people with a few snaps and clicks. We can with a single interaction encourage, and inspire someone all the way around the planet in an instant! Even for ourselves, taking just a little bit of time to build ourselves up is proven to create a higher resilience to difficult and stressful situations. The truth is, this has opened up so many doors for people to live the kind of lives they never could before. From artists to clothing designers, crafters, and everything in between personal brands have empowered uncountable people to do what they love every day without adhering to any rules but their own. Affirmations for their part have been studied and proven to change the way we perceive ourselves. They build up our confidence and in doing so help us deal with the difficult things life can throw at us.   Grab your Journal! List out some positives about yourself, and don't be afraid to be a little vain! Write down a list of positives you want to be true for yourself. No limits! Schedule time in your morning routine to review these positives. If you say them out loud, even better! Schedule in activities that will make the positives you want to be true to yourself real. Who you are is unique to you, and no one can truly define who you are but yourself. Don't let your self-perceptions be controlled by an external force. Instead, own yourself by being the first person who gets to tell you who you are every morning! Selfishness breeds Loneliness but without Self-Care, we're Lost Self-care is a critical activity we should engage in during the day. Our time is split between two forms of contribution. One that is in service to others- these are our communications, our efforts at work, or taking care of the kids. The other is in service to ourselves- those are eating, exercising, intentionally breathing, and just taking a quiet moment to appreciate what we have. We need both to truly thrive! As with all things, a balance must be met. We cannot be completely selfless. If we are, we will find ourselves used up. Sometimes even abused for our giving nature. Yet, we can't be completely selfish either, if we are then we push away those we care about most. We have to fill ourselves up before we can make a contribution to others. We have to take care of ourselves because if we don't then our contributions come from a place of emptiness. This will make them subpar and in some cases even detrimental to our ability to serve at a level that will make a real difference. It's an incredible time to be alive! A time when we are seeing so many social constructs be deconstructed. Allowing for exciting new structures to rise in their place. Individuals are empowered to learn complex skills, make connections with communities, and chase their dreams like never before. There's a new societal renaissance happening around us every day and it includes everything from- music, art, business, communication, health, education, self-enlightenment, even reality itself with growing virtual reality advances! With so much possible to contribute to we have to selfishly take some time for ourselves or the result is total burnout.   Grab your Journal! Make a list of all the things you do to contribute to the efforts of a group or others around you. Make a list of all the things you do to contribute and care for yourself. Check in with yourself. How imbalanced is your list? How much burnout do you feel with your list like this? Make a list of all the things you need to balance yourself out. Make as close to equal contributions to external as internal. Schedule in the things you need to balance yourself in the day, be selfish and take the time you schedule. When we reflect on the values we've put on pedestals. Question our thought processes and mindsets on what the real benefit of our actions are, what we find is a personal truth. We open ourselves up to possibilities and our contributions become even more significant because we have more to give. Self-care is the fuel we need to be giving machines! The question- Who are you? It's never been more important or life-impacting as it is today to know who you are. It is the key to finding your passions, connecting with a community that will support you, that will give you a real and lasting sense of fulfillment and contribution. To truly find the answer to this question. You have to be a little selfish and engage in some real, honest, and revitalizing self-care. You have to be a little vain and believe in yourself. To lift yourself up and be a little egotistical so people know what you're capable of. You do this so you can find yourself. Because when you do that! This crazy world we live in starts to make a lot more sense. Take it from Jessica, she can do anything better than anyone.  

Throughout each day, we deal with several things that can cloud our mental space. A stressful job, family responsibilities, relationships, finances, _______ (insert what stresses you here) or a combination of these things can be exhausting physically and mentally. Dealing with just one of these things can take up much space in your brain. While it is true that you can’t completely avoid stressful situations, there are certain things you can do to give your brain some much-needed breathing space. We’ve listed down 4 detox methods that will help clear your mind and relax your body. 1. Apply Heat & Sweat it Out We’re talking about saunas. While ridding your body of toxic chemicals, saunas promote the ultimate relaxation. Whether you do a session on your own or with a group, you’ll definitely have that much needed time for yourself - similar to sorting out your thoughts when you’re in the shower. A study done by the University of Texas at Austin revealed that saunas promote both physical and mental health while activating chemicals like prolactin and norepinephrine which increase attention span and brain growth. 2. Get Your Body Moving Rather than busying your mind with cluttered thoughts, get your body moving. Various studies have shown how physical activities trigger your body to release endorphins, dopamine, and other chemicals that when activated, relieve mental stress, promote relaxation and boosts your mood. A simple 30-minute stroll can do the trick. Mayo Clinic released an in-depth article stating that “exercise is a distraction that can get you away from the cycle of negative thoughts” that cloud your mind. The best part about exercising is that you can work up a sweat the way you want to. Playing a sport, hopping on your favorite machine at the gym, or going for a scenic run are all great for clearing your mind of the clutter of the day. 3. Eat for Your Mind The Mental Health Foundation of America suggests eating with mental health in mind. Ultimately, whatever you put in your body will not only be reflected in your physical appearance but in your mood as well. Sugary drinks contain aspartame which contributes to anxiety attacks and other mental complications. So opt for water, in most, if not all, situations. Start munching on food with mind boosting nutrients such as folate, vitamin D, and Omega-3 fatty acids. Folate and vitamin D decreases the chemicals that bring on negative feelings, while Omega-3 fatty acids stabilize mood. 4. Engage in Activities That Keep Your Mind Focused Meditation and Yoga both require immense focus and dedication to their techniques, that there’s not enough room to think about much else. Even if you begin your session with a million thoughts, but by the time you get into the rhythm of the moves, you won’t be aware of what you were thinking of just moments before. Consistently putting yourself in a situation to clear your mind if only for 10 minutes will keep your mental health in check and provide you with some relief. Life can get stressful sometimes. But you can cushion its blows. Give any of these detox methods a try when things are starting to push your mind into overdrive. You’ll notice a difference in your mood, you’ll feel more relaxed and you can think things through more clearly.