I’m passing out VIP tickets for the train to lasting, well-rounded wellness. They’re not for everyone. They’re for people who want to get off the short-term resolution train and hop on one that leads to a lifetime of greater health and well-being. People who want to turn up the quality of their life from fine to fabulous. Does that include you?

If you’d like a ticket, fantastic! Let’s get rolling. First, I want to ask you two questions. What percentage of the time do you show up at work, at home, and even in your social life, feeling energized and ready to function at your full potential? What impact would it make in these areas of your life if you felt that way most times, rather than sometimes or even once in awhile?

This is where the well-rounded wellness comes in. Well-rounded wellness includes eight pillars that, when practiced regularly, will remove the blocks that sabotage your body’s ability to feel physically and mentally charged up. When we remove the blocks, positive and inspired energy can flow more easily and feeling fabulous will become more of the norm. And when we feel fabulous, we can channel that into all the areas of our life.

Most of the time, when we think about the things we should do each day to keep our bodies healthy, we think about eating healthful foods and exercising regularly. However, well-rounded wellness extends beyond just those two health behaviors. While they’re critical components to generating and replenishing our energy, they alone aren’t enough. We also need to address the mental and emotional muck that squelches our energy and undermines our commitment to eating healthy and exercising.

8 Pillars to Well-Rounded Wellness

Over the next several months, we’ll explore each one of these eight pillars to well-rounded wellness:

  1. Nutrition
  2. Fitness
  3. Spirituality
  4. Self-Care
  5. Sleep
  6. Connection
  7. Love, Laugh and Fun
  8. Experience

I’ll provide you with some small, but life-changing practices that you can easily incorporate into your daily routine. But first, we need to explore what moving the needle from fine to fabulous would look like and feel like in your life.

One of my favorite authors and spiritual teachers is Wayne Dyer. He reversed the expression, “I’ll believe it when I see it” to “I’ll see it when I believe it.” I love this inversion. What Dr. Dyer means is that you must first believe that something is possible before you can make it your reality. When you visualize what you want for your life in vivid detail, when you imagine what this reality will feel like, when you believe forces are at work to help you make it happen, and when you act accordingly, you set the creation of a fabulous reality into motion.

Moving the needle starts by creating a compelling vision. Let’s do a fun little exercise to create your wellness vision. It would be helpful to jot some things down on a piece of paper to keep in your purse or on your desk to refer to as a motivational tool. I like to jot stuff like this down in the “notes” app in my phone.

  1. Close your eyes. Think about a day or time when your body, mind and spirit were in sync and you were in the flow with life. When you felt like the universe was supporting you. When you felt inspired and energized. When you felt sassy and confident in your own skin. When you felt on top of your game.
  2. Let those emotions set in for a moment. Notice how these feelings compare to how you feel now. What would it feel like if you felt that way on a regular basis?
  3. Take a moment to paint a picture vivid picture in your mind of you living at your ideal level of wellness. Think about how you would feel. Use lots of descriptive words, such as strong, calm, creative, bold, productive, badass, etc. How would you look? Use as much detail in your vision as you can.

I invite you to write down your wellness vision as well as the answers to the following questions:

  1. What would moving your needle from fine to fabulous empower you to do?
  2. Why is this important to you? How would this transformation impact your life?
  3. Would you be willing to incorporate small, daily practices into your routine if you could manifest your vision into your reality?

Powerful 3-Letter Word

Now for the super juicy part. Can you guess what the three-letter word is that holds the secret to lasting motivation? It’s “why.” External motivators, like a New Year’s resolution, swimsuit season, attending an event, etc., are usually easier to name than intrinsic ones. However, intrinsic ones, the ones that comes from within us, are the motivators that stick.

But you can shift an external motivator into an intrinsic one that carries more power by digging into why the external motivator is meaningful to you. Here’s an example: You want to wear a certain pair of jeans (external). Ask yourself why. What will wearing these jeans mean to you? What feelings would wearing those jeans evoke? What message would these jeans send about you? Once you have those answers, you can restate your motivation. Instead of “I want to fit in my jeans,” your deeper answer might be, “I want to feel fashionable, not frumpy. I want to express my sassy personality. I want to feel more confident in social situations. I want to turn my partner’s head,” (internal).

 Now it’s your turn. Jot down these answers as well.

  1. What are your “whys?” Jot down whatever comes to mind.
  2. Take a few moments to review what you wrote. Can you expand upon them? Take time to dig deep.
  3. Now look at your reasons. Are these reasons external or internal? Are they motivators that support your wellness vision?

I encourage you this month to do this exercise a few times. That will be your foundation for the “8 Well-Rounded Pillars” that we’ll explore in depth in the next several articles. Your answers will secure your VIP ticket on the long-lasting wellness train. You may experience detours along the way, but the well-rounded wellness train will always be available to lead you back toward fabulous.

For more articles and resources to get you on that well-rounded wellness train, check out my website and blog at www.wellroundedwellness.com.