Optimize Your Wellness

January is the perfect time for setting goals and making healthier lifestyle choices. Many of our new year’s resolutions are based in a desire to reach optimal wellness. It can quickly become overwhelming to consider all the different ideas and strategies that our society portrays for achieving a healthy lifestyle.

Even though wellness is defined by the American Heritage Medical Dictionary as: “The condition of good physical, mental, and emotional health, especially when maintained by an appropriate diet, exercise, and other lifestyle modifications”, wellness can mean something different to everyone at any given point.

To me, reaching optimal wellness is when my mind, body and soul are aligned with my goals, beliefs and passions. It is when I find the balance between crushing it at the gym and enjoying my days offline in track pants while watching Netflix. It’s when I can enjoy a nourishing dinner and then savouring a dark chocolate peppermint patty, without guilt. It is when I can tell the difference between people who serve a purpose in my life, and those who suck the energy right out of me. It’s when I find a balance between my business and my personal life. Lastly, it is when I can show my mind, body and soul the love and appreciation it deserves for supporting me day in and day out on my wellness journey.

For the last few years, instead of making a long list of New Year’s resolutions; every month I make a mindful and conscious effort to sit down with a cup of tea and ask myself “what is one thing that I can improve in my lifestyle to reach optimal wellness this month?” That’s right, one thing. I have learned I am far more successful at staying committed and motivated to reach my goals, if I focus on one tasks to implement into my daily routine.

I believe that achieving optimal wellness is not a weekend project, but rather of lifelong journey. It is about evaluating your entire lifestyle, relationships, habits and needs and seeing where you need to focus your intentions on, at that given moment. During the month of January, I will be focusing my intentions on the amount of time I spend on electronics on weekends. I will continue to share my personal goals, habits and tasks during the week, but I will make a conscious effort to reduce my “online” social media presence on my weekends. I know that this is going to be a challenging goal, so I will start by cutting back on the time I am mindlessly scrolling through Instagram stories and Facebook videos by allotting myself 1 hour on Saturday and Sunday on social media. I know that this goal may not be forever, but it will help me to be mindful of the amount of time I spend on social media to help me reduce my overall time spent scrolling.

I encourage you to change your perspective on how you want to improve your wellness in 2018. To allow this year to be realistic, successful and attainable, choose one area of your life that you can focus on to improve your well being to optimize your wellness. It can be anything from eating more greens, exercising twice a week, cutting ties with an unhealthy relationship or taking more time for yourself. Whatever it may be, give it your best shot for 30 days and see how your overall wellness has progressed.

Wishing you a wealth of wellness,