Q1 Check-in
Q1 or Quarter 1 is the first quarter of a 52 week period. January, February and March are part of the calendar year, but government and businesses use a fiscal year for planning and reporting purposes. For this week’s blog, we are going to use the calendar year’s Q1 to check-in with your health and wellness for the first quarter of 2022. Think back to your New Year’s resolutions. Are you still on track, did you meet your goals, or did your goals slip through?
We can’t talk enough about how important maintaining good health is for a fulfilling life. We only have one body and mind to take care of in a relatively short span of time. The sooner we take care of them, the healthier and more fulfilled we’ll be! It is never too late to start to take care of yourself. A few months ago we published a blog titled “Eight Dimensions of Health and Wellness.” The blog was centered around building up your health and wellness by balancing eight dimensions of your life. The eight dimensions we discussed were: Emotional, Social, Spiritual, Financial, Vocational, Physical, Intellectual, and Environmental.
These eight dimensions, when all in balance, help to ensure an individual’s health and life is functioning at an optimal level. It is best to think of these dimensions as a wheel with eight different spokes. Now imagine if three of the spokes were complete in length and the other five were shorter. You can imagine that your wheel would not spin very efficiently and could lead to dysfunction. This is why we focus on balancing all eight dimensions, rather than trying to fulfill one at time.
Start by truly look at your health by examining your daily habits. See which areas of your eight dimensions need more attention. If you haven’t read our previous blog, “Eight Dimensions of Health and Wellness”, I would suggest doing that now. Then you go through this blog to find specific ways to improve those dimensions. The ultimate goal is to see all eight dimensions balanced, not necessarily completely fulfilled to their highest potential. With balanced health, we will see ourselves perform efficiently throughout our daily routines.
Below is a follow up to show different ways to balance our eight dimensions of health and wellness:
Emotional:
- Spend time with your emotions. Notice which emotions lead to which actions and how they specifically make you feel.
- Do not suppress your emotions. Focus on every aspect of what you are feeling, the good and the bad.
- Be open to feeling all emotions, not just the ones you want to feel.
- Focus on the positives. Try to become a “glass half full” person.
Social:
- Strengthen your current relationships by spending more time together and practicing effective communication.
- Build new relationships with like minded people who share the same values as you.
- Disconnect from those who bring negativity into your life.
- Find a way to connect to your community. Through community service, a church, food bank, non-profit.
Spiritual:
- Discover your life purpose. Ask yourself what it is you want to do for the rest of your life and then strive for it.
- Identify your beliefs and values and practice incorporating them into your day to day life.
- Spend time discovering or worshipping your higher power.
Financial:
- Save your money by putting away a percentage of each paycheck that you earn.
- Budget your money by spending only on bare necessities.
- Create a side hustle. Thanks to social media and its power, people are creating new ways to make some money, even from your couch.
Vocational:
- If you do not feel satisfied by your career, focus on finding ways to change it.
- You want to enjoy going to work everyday, not dread it. Find a career that makes you feel happy to do it.
- Make sure your career aligns with your personal beliefs and values. You should not have to do things that you do not morally feel comfortable doing.
- If you can not picture yourself spending the rest of your life in your current field, start finding one that you can picture yourself in.
Physical:
- Be proud of your body everyday. Think about all the mechanics that it goes through just to keep you alive.
- Value your body by feeding it properly and moving it daily.
- Limit alcohol consumption. Your body prefers water over anything else.
- Reduce the usage of vapes, cigarettes, cigars, and or any other inhalant.
Intellectual:
- Practice curiosity. Humans are curious beings who love to learn new things.
- Make reading your next hobby.
- Visit museums, art galleries, and history places to capture as much knowledge as you can.
- Listen to stories from elders and learn the lessons that they have to teach.
Environmental:
- Save water, electricity, and gas whenever you can.
- Switch to reusable items instead of single use plastics.
- Place your trash in the recycling or garbage, not the ground.
- Spend more time in nature. There are many different healing properties that come with it.
Kick this second quarter off to a good start so when Q2 ends you can look back and see how far you’ve progressed in just three months.