Wellness Through Being
Article by Mary Lynn Ghinzel, sharing a different approach to attaining a sense of wellness.
Imagine your most energized, passionate and healthy self. You engage in loving relationships, healthy activities and meaningful work. There’s a knowledge you can handle challenges. You love life and feel that sense of happiness with what you have right now. This, you feel, is the ultimate in wellness.
Greater Wellness
It’s January, that time of year when we get to reflect on our lives and imagine all the possibilities for the year ahead. Most of us want to feel a greater sense wellness in our lives. Many make New Year’s resolutions and nearly all of us have at least one goal we wish to achieve in 2013. But wait! It’s now past the middle of January, when statistics typically show that many of us have already broken our resolutions, reneging on the ‘plan’ to make our goals a reality. What happened? By focusing on the wrong things, we unconsciously set ourselves up for failure.
A simple, important concept I have learned and use in my coaching is the Being / Doing / Having in life. We often focus on the Having (our dream or goal) and plan the Doing (what we want or need to do to reach our goal), but what about the Being?
Being, Doing and Having
The Being (how we’ll feel, look and act like) is usually the result of reaching our goals:
[box style=”rounded”]Having + Doing = Being[/box]Think of a goal you have for 2013. Let’s say it is to run a marathon, and you plan to run five times per week and the result will be feeling more fit, looking leaner.
[box style=”rounded”]Run a marathon (Having) + Run five time per week (Doing) = Leaner, fit (Being)[/box]If we miss the Doing part, we do not achieve the goal or the result. Even worse, we are often left feeling ‘not good enough’, ‘like a failure’, which in turn affects our overall wellness.
Change Your Focus
Your whole life will change if you focus on your Being first and choose the Doing from what excites and honours who you are being.
[box style=”rounded”]Be + Do = Have[/box]In the example of running a marathon, first choose who you want to be, what is really important to you in your whole life. You may choose to be ‘committed’ or ‘confident’. Running five times per week is one of the important things you do to honour that being. If you fail to run for a week, but are ‘being committed and confident’ in your whole life, you are far more likely
to start running again. You will achieve this goal along with many others as a result of who you are intentionally choosing to be. Wellness will follow.
10 Steps for Achieving Your Wellness Goals
How do you get started? Here are 10 steps to achieve your wellness goals with greater ease and focus:
[ordered_list style=”decimal”]- Think of all the ways of being that excite you and challenge you.
- Ask yourself: “Who do I want to be?”
- List the being words that truly reflect you and are important to you.
- Choose the description of being that is the best you.
- Practice being this every day in all you do.
- Be mindful of this being in your activities, relationships and work.
- Choose your doing from this way of being.
- Notice the impact of who are being in yourself and others.
- Enjoy the feeling of wellness you create.
- Celebrate the success of achieving each new goal.
Be you this year, and feel how the wellness flows from it!
Mary Lynn Ghinzel is a life and career coach for women. She lives in South Surrey with her husband, two children and their dog. If you are interested in creating more in your life this year, register for her upcoming workshop on January 26, 2013.
*Photo Credit: Foxtongue on Flickr
