Setting wellness goals helps you bring your best self to every day

Lucy Eden, founder of Be In Your Element, organisers of corporate wellness events, discusses the benefits of setting wellness goals. We set goals for everything – career, finances, family, dreams and health.

We perhaps set too many goals then beat ourselves up if we haven’t achieved them. Be kind to yourselves when you set your intentions. If you are setting wellness goals, that’s great, but are you setting them the ‘wellness way’?

I like to look at the process of setting wellness goals in a simple way, with a four-part plan; Simple – Steady – Strong – Scan

Simple

Anything you introduce to your wellbeing should be simple to achieve. If your goal is to move more, make it easy to do; local walks, exercise at home, join a gym that’s on the way to the office etc. Keep the initial goalsetting simple to allow you to turn something that’s new to you, into a habit. Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement, the effects of your habits multiply as you repeat them and once you have a habit, you can then set a new goal and start building.

Steady

Slow and steady wins the wellness race. Be steady and patient with your purpose, anything worth doing is worth doing right. We know living at 100 miles an hour is not good for our health, and we have learnt that our mental health is just as important as physical health. Brain breaks are needed and mindful moments are magical, but we need to come off the fast lane to take the breaks.

Strong

Distractions and excuses off-rail our goals. Go back to keeping things simple to drown out the distractions and the excuses. If you want to do a morning workout, put your gym clothes out the night before. That sets an intention (half of the job is done) now you just need to grab those easy to reach clothes and get off the starting line.

Scan

I find this ‘S’ the most important one of all. Scan yourself. Check in with how you are doing. How are you feeling, what have you achieved, what has the journey been like, are you still aligned with the wellness way you had set? Setting goals and intentions for your wellbeing should not be done only every new year, you should be scanning yourself and where you are on your journey way more often than that. And if you have derailed a little from your course, you aren’t too far down the line and can easily steer yourself back on track. Remember to be kind to yourself, if you have missed a run that week, not slept for 7 hours every night, that is ok.

And do you want to know what the best part of this plan is? If your wellbeing goals are set the wellness way, and are on track, you are bringing your best self to every day. From a healthier, happier you, there is nothing you cannot do.

You can find more wellness advice and bespoke wellbeing activities for both individual and corporate events on www.yourelementevents.com