19 Aug Your wellness is so much bigger than the scale!
I start out all my new client appointments with this drawing. I begin with this because people tend to be obsessed with the scale. An individual’s health and wellness is made up of 8 Dimensions of Health* which includes Emotional, Financial, Social, Spiritual, Environmental, Occupational, Intellectual and yes, the final one, the Physical. Unfortunately, we spend so much time perseverating over the physical dimension: worried about how much we weigh; are we getting enough sleep; what we should eat and exercise, etc. Many times I find that people spend so much energy worried about this dimension that they lose sight of the big picture. The whole AMAZING person!
Wellness includes so much more than the scale yet many of my clients contact me because they can not make it budge. The scale is a tool of measurement – actually, it measures your relationship with gravity – yet it has now become the focus and frustration of so many. Actually anecdotally I’ve found that when my clients set goals in the other areas of wellness, the scale actually starts moving or maybe sleep comes easier.
I encourage folks to use this drawing as a way to set health and wellness goals. I have enclosed a clean copy but also one that I marked up with my three-month goals for wellness. You’ll notice that the goals are not lofty and big. Instead, they are achievable and bite-sized. Most goals involve behavior change and I encourage you to tip-toe making small changes that add up to BIG ones!
Another tip is to try to connect your wellness dimensions – for instance, if you walk with a friend sometimes it doesn’t even seem like exercise. It’s because you not only check the box of meeting your physical needs but also your social and maybe emotional.
I will write more in the future about the dimensions of health – consider this a summary to get you started.
Personal Note:
Check out my financial goal – It is not to put $10,000 in my 401K instead my goal is smaller: “eat at home more”. Not only does this help my budget, but eating at home more, tends to mean more healthy fare as well as smaller portions. This connects my financial and my physical dimensions OR as I like to say – it’s a double whammy goal!
Be Well gina
*The US Department of Health and Human Services created this drawing to be used by SAMHSA – The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)
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