If you are living your best self, you will flourish. Being the best you can be doesn’t happen without a lot of work and intention. Using the analogy of plants, most plants don’t just grow without some major tender loving care. They require proper light, soil, water, fertilizer and so on. Your personal well-being is the same. With the right environment, even if you aren’t the most positive person in the world, you can be emotionally well. To flourish doesn’t require you to always have a sunny disposition, it does require that you are self-aware and take care of your well-being. Flourishing is the result of your overall well-being.
Here are 5 ways to tend to your well-being.
- Be realistic – Consider the things that you are dissatisfied with in your life. Decide what changes you can make to help improve your situation. Set small SMART goals that are realistic to your life. Everyday, we are placing expectations on ourselves that could impact our well-being, and we tend to focus on the things that are out of our control. Be sure to keep your attention on what’s within your power to change. The behavior of other people, the circumstances you were born into, what others think about you, and the like are all beyond your reach. Unrealistic expectations are like a plant in the wrong soil.
- Respect your time – Where are you spending your time that’s not giving you a return? Time spent surfing the web and social media, procrastinating, stressing over things you can’t change, waiting in line, errands, all of these can be time zappers. You must respect and protect your time. When you spend unnecessary time doing things that aren’t beneficial to your well-being, it takes away from the time you could be spending on something more productive. Be mindful of where and with who you spend your time. When you don’t respect your time, it’s comparable to the plant not having the proper light.
- Stay well nourished – You are what you eat. This just isn’t a slogan you see on a picture of an unhealthy person, it’s 100% true. What you put in, is what you will get out. This is true for nutrition for your body as well as information for your mind. If you want to have the energy and health you need to do the things you want to accomplish, you need the proper nourishment which includes hydration. What you feed your mind is equally important. Are you intentional about what you watch, read, and listen to? Just like the plant needs fertilizer and water to stay nourished, so do you!
- Don’t be so serious – Setbacks, hardships, and rejections are a part of life and they happen to everyone. We have to stop taking it all so personal and allowing life’s little daggers to steal our joy. Don’t beat yourself up over mistakes. Remember, a mistake is a disappointment, it’s not disaster. Practice responding instead of reacting. Give yourself and others grace. It can feel like you’re taking 3 steps forward only to take 2 steps back, and that’s discouraging. Remember though, even if only 1 step at a time, you keep overcoming and moving forward, you will get there. Learn to laugh more and let things roll off your back. It’s so freeing and a much lighter load to bare when we don’t take offense to everything. It’s like pulling weeds away from the plant!
- Get strong physically and emotionally – Exercising is not an option. You must make this a part of your daily routine. Start small, start wherever you are, but do something. When your body is strong, you feel like you can conquer the world. When it’s weak, not so much. Strength is relative to you, and the goal is to be the best version of you. You must workout those mental muscles too, so you stay strong emotionally. If weights are what you use to strengthen your body, then practice is what you use to strengthen your mind. Every time you practice discipline, patience, gratitude, or perseverance, you get a little stronger emotionally. Being strong emotionally and physically is like having the perfect pot for the plant!
Tending to your well-being will allow you to flourish and ultimately live your best life. The time is now for you to flourish!
Written by:
Kim Martin, Founder of I’ve Decided INC