Working With Your Wellness Vision

Jenna Zaffino [00:00:08]:

Hi, everyone. I'm Jenna. In this session, we are going to check-in with the work you've done on your wellness vision statement. Now, if you haven't watched part 1, I want to encourage you to go back to the first video and go through the steps to create your first draft. It will help a lot and make this video make more sense. If you've gone through those steps, if you created your first draft and kind of put it to test, you're in the right place. I like to start by inviting you to bring out your notebook or your download with the place where you wrote that first draft so we can look at it and see what's going on with it. Now the first question I have for you is, does that wellness vision still track? Is it still inspiring for you? And has it been inspiring for you maybe over the few weeks you've been working with it? Oftentimes, we create this idea of wellness through this lens of, again, perfection or something that's astounding or Instagramable.

And truly, what we're working on with our wellness, again, is these small, sustainable, consistent steps. They are often more boring than a juice cleanse or an overhaul to your workout program or a new supplement. Wellness is largely normal and boring, but it's yours, and that's the most important part. When you know those elements that lend themselves towards the paradigm of your well-being, then they become more exciting over time. When you see and feel the difference when they're present and miss them when they're gone, then they become more enticing and exciting, and they really do end up working for us. But at the beginning, it can be tempting to make them fantastical and very big and overwhelming, and those things have been shown and proven not to work so well. So I'd like to start with asking you on a scale of 1 to 10, one being not motivated at all and 10 being very motivated. As you look at your first draft of your wellness vision statement, where do you fall on the scale of motivation to take action on it? In the last video, we talked about waking up energized as part of the statement.

Does that feel like a 1, or does it feel like a 10? So in the event that you fell on the scale between 15, the question for you is, what would need to be present in order to create more motivation surrounding this statement for you personally? Perhaps the statement is one of these ideals, and it didn't really have anything to do with you. And maybe it's time to revise and go back to the first video and just consider a different pathway. Or maybe you chose a little higher than you were ready to take action on. So, think about what could you do to move yourself a little higher up the motivational scale. Now, for those of you who are a 5 to a 10, I'll ask you to consider why you were a 5 and maybe not a 4. Why you might be a 6 or a 7 and maybe not a 4. What makes the difference in motivation to rate you higher on that scale? And the reason we're doing this is so that you can see that there truly is motivation there, and you can hopefully ride the wave of motivation to take action towards your wellness vision. So first step is checking in with motivation.

And once you've done that, the next step is checking in with your action items. Did you take action towards the first draft of your wellness vision? If so, what did you do, and how often did you do it? So many times, the planning phase has a lot of motivation at the beginning, but then the novelty wears off and we can fall off of the routine of staying consistent with small actions that will bring us closer to our vision of wellness. Here's the deal. We are going to use an acronym that I'm sure you're all very familiar with. It's the SMART acronym for goal setting. SMART stands for specific, measurable, adaptable, realistic, and timely. So, for example, if you were somebody who intended to in your vision to wake up feeling energized, and you maybe went to bed earlier than normal two times in the past couple weeks, we would say, well, we can measure that 2 times, but we know that we are not necessarily going to see that create a lot of change because it's not happening specifically enough on a regular basis. It also isn't happening enough to create a habit, so there's no relatability or routine to it.

And it's hard to measure how those two times contributed to the overall vision because they were infrequent. So in order to adjust that action item, we need to get a little more specific. I am going to go to bed earlier 3 nights out of the week, the work week. On Monday, on Wednesday, and on Friday, I will go to bed at 7:30. That's really early. But in order for us to move with a bit more focus towards this vision, should it still be resonating with us, we want to be a specific, measurable, adaptable, relatable, and timely as we possibly can. That means, often, going a little smaller at the beginning. Thinking about what is realistic for us to do over maybe a 2 to 3 week time.

Given the fact that there are lots of other aspects in your life, we want to think about what will make a difference and what can I do consistently? So let's reflect on your action items for a moment. Think about what worked and think about how we can make it a little bit more smart. Take a few moments to write down your thoughts and feelings. Pause the video if you need more time, and we'll be back in a second. The last step we'll take today is maybe one of the most important and also one of the most overlooked when moving towards the vision we have for our well-being. And that is to recognize that there will be obstacles, And it's important that we have a plan b for when our best intentions are interrupted with life. Let's use the example of wanting to wake up energized and determining that specific action item will be to go to bed earlier on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. So we've got our plan laid out.

Now let's say you have other people living in your household with you, and let's say some of those people are children. And let's say, like most children, they will come home with any number of illness or issue or something that requires you as a parent, for example, to be present for them and perhaps maybe not go to bed as early as you wanted to. So the question is, if those plans are interrupted, what will I do? How will I support myself through them? Can I make them up, or is it a matter of having grace with myself that life will happen, and I'll put my intentions into doing better the following week? There are a lot of strategies surrounding goal setting that we can use that really do work for us in terms of having the grace for life to happen, having a backup plan. In this case, maybe you determine that if you couldn't get to bed at the time you wanted to on one of the 3 nights, then maybe you add an additional effort in on one of the off nights in order to really meet that goal. Being flexible with the way in which you move forward is one of the best strategies we can have. As long as we're aware of those specific steps, we know how to move with them and be adaptable with them, which is one of our goal setting focuses for this wellness vision. So let's look at our first draft. Let's reflect on our action item, and then let's consider what our plan b will be.

In the event that I'm not able to achieve what I said I would, what will I do instead? Choose the thing that's most reasonable for you. Some of us are going to need more rest on certain weeks than our intentions accounted for. And so I am a huge proponent of grace for yourself during the times where your intentions didn't align with the life circumstances, knowing that when you can, you will, and you have a plan to support you in those endeavors. Take a few moments, reflect, see what your plan b is. Pause the video if you need more time, and I'll be back in a few. The last part of this process for now is just taking one more moment of inventory surrounding your statement, any revisions you wanna make towards it, your actions that you intend to take towards this statement, towards making it a reality, and how specific you are about them. And then, finally, your plan should your ultimate action plan be interrupted. I'd like you to take a moment, refine anything that feels like it is not a 100% true or manageable or doable or motivating.

And, again, this is your wellness vision, so you have complete and total control over how you craft it. One of the best next steps is to give yourself a bit of a timeline. Going back to that t in smart, that timely goal, your wellness vision might look like I wake up energized. And so you'll consider how long of going to bed early or making some other moves towards that goal do I think it will take for me to start to feel the benefit of waking up energized. Now this whole process is part of the coaching process, and it can be complicated. But I wanna encourage you to continue to simplify according to your own needs. Remember, anything that you're doing on a regular basis in the name of moving towards wellness matters. It puts you in a phase of that illness to wellness continuum called growth.

It means you're making efforts, and the goal setting science says that as you make those efforts, you should be able to reap the benefits of those efforts over a period of time. The most important piece, I think, when working through this process is to keep it realistic and to keep it personalized to your unique life. Don't let somebody else's goals sneak in and take over your own. Think about the aspects and ingredients that make you feel whole, and let that be the central focus of your well-being intentions. Thank you for being here. Remember, you are strong, resilient, and the small moments matter. I'll see you next time.