A wellness plan is an action plan geared towards achieving personal well-being. Personal well-being implies a multidimensional state of health and satisfaction. There are many aspects related to personal well-being and each of them must be developed and maintained to achieve an optimal condition of general well-being. Personal wellness plans must take all of these aspects into consideration and must be tailored to individual needs. Follow these steps to create your personal wellness plan.
Steps
Step 1. Assess your well-being
The many dimensions of personal well-being overlap and, together, contribute to creating an integrated system of well-being. Think about the various aspects of personal well-being and how they interact with your condition, then evaluate the amount of well-being, or achievement, you feel you have in each area:
- Emotional well-being. It is about the degree of awareness and acceptance of your feelings, as well as the ability to deal with them. Relationships, stress, self-esteem, and outlook on life are all factors that come into play in assessing your emotional well-being. This type of well-being helps to increase your degree of resilience.
- Social well-being. This aspect of personal well-being has to do with how you see your place in the world and in society and with the ability to adapt your personal role to the social context.
- Intellectual well-being. This dimension refers to the amount of information and knowledge you are able to assimilate, as well as the amount of creative and analytical thinking you are able to produce. Learning, problem solving, and mental productivity are all important aspects of intellectual well-being.
- Spiritual well-being. Wellness plans include spiritual well-being not in reference to religion, rather as an indication of what one perceives to be the meaning of life and how one adapts to it. Beliefs and value systems are a part of spiritual well-being.
- Mental well-being. It is about your mental health. While it includes depression and anxiety, which can be either hereditary or due to circumstances, it also includes positive emotions such as joy, contentment and happiness.
- Economic well-being. Economic stability and security are integral to personal well-being.
- Physical well-being. It includes nutrition, fitness and the prevention of unhealthy habits such as smoking, alcohol and drugs.
- Work well-being. This aspect of personal well-being emphasizes the importance of a positive attitude towards work and the need for a career path that is rewarding and enriching.
- Environmental wellbeing. It refers to your level of environmental awareness. Remember that every cell in your body was created from natural elements that come from what you ate, what you drank and the air you breathed. Your personal well-being is intertwined with the well-being of the environment.
- Health well-being. It includes health promotion and health practices such as medical examinations, health prevention and health management.
Step 2. Identify the areas you feel need improvement
Be honest with yourself about how satisfied you really feel in every aspect of wellness so that you can create a wellness plan that fits your needs.
Step 3. Set goals for the improvements you want to achieve
There are many things that can be done to improve every aspect of personal well-being. Once you have identified the areas you feel you need to work on, plan a series of specific goals to be achieved in each area, in order to achieve greater overall well-being.
Step 4. Record your progress
Keep a personal notebook or diary in which you will outline every aspect of personal well-being and the goals you have planned to improve your condition. Mark important dates and checkpoints on a calendar designed specifically for your personal wellness plan, so you can track your progress. An indication that the plan is working is that you should start feeling better, lighter, and happier.
Step 5. Update your wellness plan goals as needed
As your personal well-being grows and develops, you may find that achieving certain goals takes longer than expected, or that some goals are no longer part of what you want to accomplish. Monitor your progress and frequently reshape your needs, to ensure that your personal wellness plan remains anchored as much as possible to your needs and requirements.
