Wellness is not one-size-fits-all — it is unique to you!
Your wellness routine doesn’t have to look like drinking a green smoothie in the morning, ditching meat or doing yoga twice a day. It can look like reading every morning for 30 minutes, spending more time outside or setting better boundaries.
So stop allowing social media’s consumerist and aesthetically pleasing version of wellness to dictate your actions, and create your own version of a healthy and fulfilling life.
Follow these 7 simple steps and get started on a wellness journey that makes you feel good, both inside and out.
What does wellness mean?
Before I jump straight into how you can get started on your wellness journey, let’s first recap what the term ‘wellness’ actually means.
Wellness is about moving towards a healthy lifestyle — one that has a positive impact on your overall health.
But we’re not just talking about your physical health here. We’re talking about all the other core aspects that contribute to your overall wellness — mental, emotional, social, environmental and spiritual.
The Global Wellness Institute defines wellness as “the active pursuit of activities, choices and lifestyles that lead to a state of holistic health.”
Their belief is that wellness is a “self-responsibility” and that we, as individuals, need to take a proactive approach to prevent disease rather than turning to conventional medicine. This comes down to making healthy lifestyle choices and adopting the right daily habits.
Popular wellness practices include getting plenty of sleep, building healthy habits and avoiding unhealthy ones, eating a well-balanced diet, moving your body daily and indulging in self-care.
A wellness journey is, therefore, quite simply about putting these practices into action and altering your lifestyle to better support your needs.
The dark side of wellness
Over the past few years, I feel as though the core meaning of wellness has become misleading.
And the term, which is essentially supposed to be a positive word, is becoming more and more intimidating, toxic and quite frankly pretentious.
From ridiculously expensive beauty products and treatments to luxury retreats and bizarre health diets, everyone is buying into the latest wellness trends to make them feel younger, eat cleaner and be healthier and fitter.
But the truth is, you don’t need to drink a green juice every morning to be “well.” Likewise, you don’t need to start your day by meditating or powering through a 50-minute spin class. Only do those things if you actually enjoy them.
Wellness also doesn’t need to look like buying ridiculously expensive beauty products, getting the latest skin treatment or trying a bizarre new diet.
And it certainly doesn’t look like dropping $10k on a luxury health retreat.
Wellness can be simple, affordable and sustainable.
Wellness, your way
It’s essential that when you get started with your wellness journey, you are setting it up to work for you, and only you. As everyone’s idea of a wellness journey will look different.
On social media, there’s a big emphasis on drinking a smoothie in the morning, meditating, and doing a high-intensity workout. Made popular by the trending “that girl” aesthetic, wellness has now been reduced to 20-second clips of face masks, drinking green juices, making the bed, squatting and practising gratitude.
But your wellness journey isn’t supposed to be aesthetically pleasing. It might not look like waking at 5 am in the morning, following a 12-step skincare routine and then heading to the gym for a (sweat-free) HIIT workout.
Remember, social media isn’t always real life, it’s a highlight reel.
For me, my wellness journey has never been about becoming “that girl” or being super health-conscious. It’s been about avoiding burnout, loving myself unconditionally, being comfortable in my own company, and putting my mental health and happiness first. It’s been uncomfortable, challenging and at times emotional. Something I’ve certainly not wanted to share on social media.
So just remember — there is no right or wrong way to do wellness.
It doesn’t have to be about ditching the carbs, eating clean and meditating twice a day.
Just because it’s a trend on TikTok doesn’t mean it’s going to work for you.
So stop copying what everyone else is doing and work towards your own version of wellness — a version that works for you.
Let’s normalise the messy reality of self-improvement and the fact that the moments that truly make us aren’t always going to be “insta-worthy”
Notes By Thalia
Benefits of a wellness journey
Let me be frank…
If your well-being isn’t being taken care of, then you can’t show up every day as your best, most productive self and perform as well as you want to.
I mean, think about it — how do you expect to work towards your goals every day if you’ve only had 3 hours of sleep? How do you expect to function if you’re not taking the time to prioritise your health and wellness?
When you take the time to build a solid wellness routine, you are investing in yourself, your productivity and your future.
Having a wellness journey that works for you can help you:
- Feel physically great and in shape
- Boost productivity and focus
- Manage stress
- Promote healthy weight loss
- Reduce the risk of chronic diseases
- Boost energy and motivation levels
- Enhance mental health
- Reduce feelings of depression and anxiety
- Improve your sleep pattern
- Strengthen relationships with others
- Cultivate a deeper sense of self-love
- Build self-confidence and self-esteem
- Live a more fulfilling and rewarding life
- And the list goes on!
Take it from me, when you feel at your best, you are better equipped to tackle life’s daily challenges and still make progress towards your goals.
So start your wellness journey today and unlock your true, full potential.
7 simple steps to help you get started on your wellness journey
1 | Set your intention
It’s so easy to be influenced into drinking green smoothies, taking supplements and buying new skincare products but will these things actually make you feel well?
Make your wellness journey relevant to you by first getting clear on your intention.
This will also help you to determine whether you are embarking on this wellness journey for the right reasons.
To do this, figure out what needs to change in your life to make you feel happier and healthier.
Whether this is eating more fruit and veg, exercising more, getting more sleep, dedicating more time to self-care, embracing your imperfections or detoxing from social media, etc.
Do a deep dive into your needs and answer these journal prompts:
- What part(s) of my life am I currently neglecting and want to give more attention to?
- What change(s) do I want to see in my life? How will this make me feel better?
- What changes(s) am I willing to commit to?
- How much time am I willing to commit to my wellness journey each day/week/month?
- What is no longer adding value to my life? What could I let go of?
Before you start this journey it’s important to know what you’re looking to improve on so you can make it relevant to you. So make sure it’s coming from the heart.
Don’t let anyone else influence your goal. You get to decide, no one else.
2 | Create a wellness vision
Once you have established your intentions, build some excitement and motivation around your new journey by creating a wellness vision.
Just like a vision board for your life, a wellness vision will highlight everything you want to achieve and how you want to feel.
It’s this vision that will push you to keep going when you lack motivation. It will fuel your excitement and passion to reach your goals.
In short, it is the spark for the flame (not sure if that makes sense but we’ll go with it).
Your wellness vision will remind you of why you are making these changes in the first place. And knowing your why is gold dust because it will serve you more than anything else.
Need help establishing your why?
Ask yourself these questions:
- Why am I doing this?
- What will prioritising my health and wellness give me?
- How will reaching my wellness vision positively impact what’s important to me?
Your wellness vision can take on any form or medium. Get creative and make a funky collage with pictures and motivating words. It can even be a short written statement or a letter to your future self. Or if you’re more inspired by audio, then voice record your vision.
Write it, read it, listen to it or print it out. Stick your wellness vision on the fridge or make it your screensaver. Look or listen to it every day to remind you why you started this journey.
And whenever you feel stuck, refer back to your vision. Repeat your vision back to yourself and always ask yourself, “What will this give me?”
3 | Make your wellness journey holistic
Wellness is holistic meaning one area of your health can greatly impact the other.
For example, if you are unhappy in a certain area of your life, e.g. your relationship, this could be impacting other areas, such as your social life or mental health.
Simply put, wellness goes far beyond the things you do to improve your physical health.
So when you are looking to build your wellness journey, it’s essential to look at your life and health as a whole rather than just one area.
There are at least six core wellness pillars including:
- Physical wellness
- Mental wellness
- Emotional wellness
- Environmental wellness
- Social wellness
- Spiritual wellness
Like I said at the beginning of this post — wellness is unique to you. That means your own wellness journey might not be limited to just these 6 core aspects. You might currently be in your “digital wellness” era and focusing on limiting your screen time.
My advice to you is to ask yourself, “What else is important to me about my health?”
Make a list of all other areas that are important to you (for example, mine is financial wellness). Once you’ve got your full list, go through each area (including the core pillars above) and rate your satisfaction level from 1 to 10 with 1 being least satisfied and 10 being most satisfied.
Depending on your scores, you’ll be able to visually see what areas need the most improvement (the lowest scores) and what other areas need to be maintained (the highest scores).
This will help you to build a wellness routine that is unique to you as you know what to work on.
4 | Set manageable goals
Once you have set your intention(s) for your wellness journey, created a vision and mapped out what aspects of your health to focus on, it’s now time to break it all down to help decrease the overwhelm.
So set small, manageable goals to bring you closer to where you want to be.
And ease in slowly!
Don’t go all-in on the first day with a hardcore 2-hour intense gym session or only eating rainbow-coloured foods. Instead, turn your wellness goals into achievable steps that you can easily fit into your daily routine.
So if your intention is to move your body every day, start with a 20-minute walk around the block every other day. Carve out time in your schedule when you know you’ll have a spare 20 minutes to commit to your walk.
Once you’ve formed your new wellness habit and you feel more confident, increase the duration or number of times you walk a week. Eventually, you will be moving your body instinctively every day and adopting a healthier lifestyle.
You can then use this as the foundation for upping the ante on your intention. Whether this is adding in a yoga session or gym workout after your walk.
Bonus tip: use the “smarter” method to set goals
- Specific – Your goals need to be detailed and specific. Clarify your goal by asking, what is the achievement? Why is this important? Who else is involved?”
- Measurable – You must be able to track your progress as this helps you to stay focused. This will also allow you to feel a sense of excitement as you get closer to your goal.
- Achievable – Don’t make wishes! Yes, your goals need to be challenging but they still need to be attainable. So make your goals achievable. Don’t just sit there manifesting hoping they will come true. You need to put in the work.
- Realistic – Be honest with yourself when writing down your goals. Are you capable? Do you have the drive and commitment? Do you have the means to reach your goals? Can you afford to reach each goal? E.g. If your goal is to follow a carnivore diet, then you need to have money to spend on high-quality grass-fed meat and if you don’t, then you need to make that your first goal.
- Time-based – Put a deadline in place so you have something to work towards. You’ll be more efficient with your time and be able to prioritise the time, habits, etc that will get you closer to your wellness goals.
- Exciting – Make your goals enticing and inspiring. You don’t want them to feel like a chore as it will put you off. I value fun and so I never want to set boring goals for myself, I want my goals to excite me. So next time you set wellness goals, make them exciting. It might be the hack you never know you needed.
- Recognise + Reward – Regularly review progress and celebrate your small wins! It will make the journey to reaching your goals a lot more enjoyable, plus you will gain more momentum when you actively look at results. And reward yourself once you hit your goal. If you make your goal satisfying in this way then you are more likely to stick to it.
5 | Keep a journal and reflect
We consume so much content during our day-to-day lives that we are influenced by others without even realising it.
If you are inspired to build on your wellness routine through YouTube videos, self-help books, podcasts, etc, make sure you take a step back every so often and reflect on what you have learnt and taken on board.
Does everything align with you and your journey?
I recommend doing this on a weekly to bi-weekly basis. Keep a journal and make notes. Reflect on how your journey is making you feel. This is one of the only ways to know for sure if you are embarking on a wellness journey that suits you.
And don’t forget to celebrate your wins, no matter how small they are!
I also recommend setting clear boundaries before starting and during your journey. This might look like limiting the amount of toxic information you consume so you don’t get sucked into the dark side of the wellness industry. Or not comparing your journey to anyone else’s or getting caught up in unhealthy dietary trends.
Setting boundaries on your wellness journey can even look like allowing yourself to not always be striving for more but to just be for a while.
You will also find that by journaling, reflecting and setting boundaries, you are more likely to stick to your wellness plan as you have more confidence and trust in yourself.
6 | Be flexible and enjoy the process!
Your wellness journey is not going to be a quick-fix solution. It is a lifelong process that you need to work on every day. So make sure you are having fun with it.
If your wellness journey doesn’t make you feel happy (or healthy) then tear it up and start over.
It shouldn’t feel like a chore. You want it to be enjoyable!
The key to any good wellness journey is to build it to work for you. Don’t just copy what everyone else is doing and instead figure out what optimal health looks like to you and create a wellness routine based on this.
You get to choose your goals, you get to choose what approach you take, and you get to choose what tools and practices you use. So customise it until it makes you feel good.
It’s also important to note that your needs may change over time (especially if you reach your goals and want to set new ones) so you might need to adjust your journey accordingly.
Stay flexible, lean into the messiness and enjoy the process.
“Life is not about the destination, but about the journey instead. We get so caught up in focusing on the final goal that life just passes us by in the process. In many ways well-being is the same. Well-being is not suddenly achieved once we attain these goals, it is with us all the way.”
Dr. Marcus Ranney | Thrive Global
7 | Work with a health and wellness coach
As I keep saying, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to wellness.
Yes, it’s up to you to find out what works best for you but you don’t have to do it alone.
A Certified Health Wellness Coach can help you bridge the gap between thinking about the above steps to taking committed action towards a healthier lifestyle.
As your coach, I can help you:
- Get clear on what you truly want
- Identify the changes you want to make
- Build confidence in your ability to make those desired changes
- Prioritise your time and focus
- Overcome any obstacles or barriers that are holding you back
- Stay accountable and motivated so you don’t give up on your goals
Together, we will turn the above concepts into a personalised 10-week plan so you can reach your goals without the overwhelm and achieve better results based on your needs.
Email me “ready” and let’s make it happen!
Save this bite-sized version on Pinterest!
Final thoughts
I hope you’ve enjoyed this blog post and feel a lot clearer about how to build a wellness journey that works for you.
I encourage you to bookmark this page so you can refer back to it at any time.
And if you need any extra support, please feel free to send me an email.
My inbox is always open.
You’ve got this,
Thalia xx
