3 essential questions for enhancing well-being at work
Hey Changemaker,
As fall approaches, so many changemakers start feeling anxious because they haven’t checked off ALL the things on their to-do lists for the first half of the year, and there’s EVEN MORE to do in the coming months.
This anxiety can lead to a cycle of stress, burnout, and overwhelm. This may motivate you to kick it into high gear in the short term.
But long term, fear-based motivation leaves a toxic residue of disempowerment, demotivation, and demoralization. Your physical and emotional health suffer, you become disconnected from the mission, your productivity drops, and your relationships with colleagues suffer.
Can you relate?
Well, it doesn’t have to be this way. There will always be ebbs and flows in life and at work. Some periods will be more intense than others. But your well-being doesn’t have to suffer during these shifts.
One of the reasons your well-being can be unstable at work is you don’t have a personal well-being plan. Instead, you hope things will magically work themselves out. Or that your organization’s leadership will finally come around and fix everything you've been saying is wrong with its approach to taking care of employees.
But hope alone isn’t a strategy. And while well-being at work isn’t just an individual responsibility, you can address the things that are within your control.
But when you don’t have a plan, it’s impossible to take action.
And when you don’t take action, seeing different results is impossible.
So, if a solid personal well-being plan is essential, where do you start?
Here are three important questions to ask yourself to get started. These are pulled from my forthcoming book How to Thrive When Work Doesn’t Love You Back: A Practical Guide for Taking Care of Yourself While Changing the World.
What’s my vision for what I want my well-being to look like in the next 90 days? Your response can be rough, aspirational bullet points and evolve over time. If 90 days feel like too much time to wrap your head around, consider shortening the time to what works better for you (e.g., the next 7, 30, or 60 days).
Which resources do I have access to right now to improve my well-being? Examples include health insurance covering mental health services, an employee assistance program (EAP) that provides caregivers resources, or a professional development budget.
What’s one small step I can take in the next 7 days to improve my well-being? This should be something you can do in 15 minutes or less (e.g. call your HR department to see if mental health services are included in your insurance plan, confirm whether your organization provides you with a professional development budget, order an actual alarm clock and set up a phone charging station outside your bedroom, etc.)
Once you answer these questions, you can put together a simple one-page plan that makes sense for what you need right now to enhance your well-being at work.
From there, you can start taking meaningful action, review your results, and do more of what’s working and less of what’s not.
But you don’t have to figure it all out on your own. I invite you to consider what type of support, accountability, coaching, and community you need for your journey.
This is one of the reasons I’m hosting the Virtual Wellness Retreat for Changemakers, Friday, July 28 - Saturday, July 29, 2023.
Keep reading for more details on how you can join us.
And remember—you can’t give your best if you’re not at your best. And if you’re not around to help create a positive impact in your community, then who will be?
Keep on keeping on,
Meico
This event is for you if you're a committed changemaker who's serious about improving your well-being and deepening your impact, and you're seeking a community of smart, heart-centered folks just like you! :-)
You will spend 2 days working through the inner and outer work of improving your well-being and increasing your well-doing.
By the end of the retreat, you'll have deeper insights into the inner roadblocks getting in the way of improving your well-being and gain practical mindfulness-based and trauma-informed strategies to help you lower your stress level and focus on getting the important things done right now.
Learn more and register here: www.mindfultechie.com/retreat.
Here's what's included:
When you register for the 2-Day Live Wellness Retreat, you can return for any of the live interactive sessions I host monthly. The retreat is a live monthly experience that you have access to when you sign-up one time. During the live sessions, we'll focus on practices that bridge the inner and outer work of increasing your well-being while well-doing. The content and approach will evolve each month.
Each month, I intentionally keep registrations limited in number so that new and past members can return and revisit the live implementation and guidance any month I host the live retreat.
The retreat includes one year of unlimited access to pre-recorded lessons and handouts that cover each pillar of the C.H.A.N.G.E. framework for well-being while well-doing covered in my forthcoming book How to Thrive When Work Doesn’t Love You Back: A Practical Guide for Taking Care of Yourself While Changing the World. Whether you can make any/all of the sessions live or not, you will keep one year of unlimited access to video lessons and handouts. New resources will be added each month.
The retreat dashboard also includes access to bonus modules (including the Mindfulness for Changemakers series, lessons on conquering digital distractions and creating better tech-life balance, and an archive of resources and links referenced during the retreat).
Ready to join us? Register now and save 30% off your registration: www.mindfultechie.com/retreat.
See you there! :)
Meico
