10 Steps to Improve Your Wellbeing
Wellbeing is a complex state of being that includes your physical, mental, emotional and social health. It’s about feeling healthy and happy with yourself and your life.
There are many different components which influence your wellbeing. Be mindful of placing too much focus on one area, at the cost of other important areas.
Step 1 – Build good relationships
Quality matters more than quantity. Healthy relationships are mutually supportive with people you can be open and honest with, meaning you can be yourself, and have connection, fun and joyful experiences.
Good relationships and social connections will improve the quality of your life.
Unfortunately, we are less connected and more distracted than we have ever been. There is more reported loneliness in the world than ever before. Building connection with others takes time, intent, effort and maybe stepping out of your comfort zone.
Step 2 - Focus on the positives
We can all creep into negative talk at times. If you become over focused on the negatives, then that can lead to more difficult emotions and unhelpful behaviours.
If you find yourself constantly complaining and becoming immersed with your problems, it’s a sure way to negatively impact your mental health and wellbeing.
Positive thinking doesn’t mean you avoid your problems or talking about difficult thoughts or emotions but choosing to spend more time thinking about the good stuff. How you choose to think about a situation can influence how you handle it.
Ask yourself good questions such as:
“What has been the best thing about today?”
“How can something positive come from this negative situation?”
“What relationships am I most thankful for?”
This helps promote gratitude and can help you reframe difficult events.
Sharing a problem is different than dwelling on it. Talking about your challenges can help ease the burden and give you clarity and perspective but, constantly fusing with the negative things in your life will hurt your wellbeing. It can become very stressful and draining if you find yourself worrying about so many different things. This can increase difficult emotions such as sadness, anxiety, regret and anger. You can end up feeling low and exhausted. While worrying is normal in difficult situations, it can end up taking you down a negative spiral if you’re not careful.
By focusing on the positives, you will feel an increase in your positive emotions that boost your wellbeing, increasing your resilience and improve your physical health.
You have a choice over what you decide to pay attention to. The more you focus on the positives, the better you get at it. Unfortunately, the reverse is also true.
Developing a positive attitude is about focusing on the things you like about yourself and your life. Rather than ruminating on past or present pain, it nudges you to find meaning and purpose in your past and present life.
Step 3 - Give more
People who give to others tend to be happier than those who don’t. There is one important caveat here; you need to respect your own boundaries. This means not neglecting your own self care for others. If you’re not in a strong and resilient place, then you can’t support others as effectively.
The smallest act of kindness goes a long way. Giving a smile to the person who served you coffee or holding the door for someone can have a big impact on someone and I promise you’ll feel good for it. It feels nice to be nice.
Step 4 - Be more present
Your mind will wander at times. It will distract you with lots of different thoughts. Some maybe unhelpful worries about the future or anger or regret from the past. But all you have is your current moment. You can learn from the past, but it has gone. You can plan, but all you really have is the current moment. So much life and value can be taken out of being fully engaged in the here and now.
This isn’t about fighting your thoughts or feelings. It’s learning to catch them, accept them and re-engage in this moment. It’s about being aware and mindful rather than lost, distracted and at the mercy of your thoughts and feelings.
By setting an intention to be more present, you will increase your happiness. You can build this skill by practising things such as mindfulness meditation. Meditation can help reduce stress, increase your focus and improve your mood.
You can also practice being more present in your day-to-day life by only focusing on one thing at a time. One example would be to have distraction free conversations. This means putting your phone away and becoming 100% focused on the conversation so you can give this person your undivided attention.
Our lives are fuller and richer when we fully engage in our experiences.
Step 5 – Be open to experiences, both good and bad
Often, we like to stick to the status quo. We all like our familiar habits and routines. There is nothing wrong with this but if we’re presented with a different situation, we can find ourselves being thrown off track.
With each life experience comes different challenges. You can’t grow and develop without these experiences. Some will be positive and some maybe more difficult to handle.
Life won’t always be good, and difficult times won’t last forever.
The greatest problem we have in life isn’t the experiences or circumstances themselves, it’s our perceptions and feelings about those experiences and circumstances.
Constantly wanting positive experiences creates feels of negativity but accepting negative experiences creates feelings of positivity.
Step 6 – Be receptive to and reflect on feedback
You may shut down to both negative or positive feedback because of taking everything personally or lacking self-esteem. Feeling secure enough in yourself to acknowledge your flaws, listen to others but also deciding not to take every bit of feedback at face value will help you build confidence and resilience.
Feedback can take many forms. Listening to feedback from your body and mind is also a vital tool. Your body and mind could be giving you signs of not feeling healthy, but you need to be able to check in with those feelings and sensations and in turn take the required action.
Another element here is being able to look at your own behaviours and previous life events to better understand yourself.
Step 7 - Allow yourself unconditional self-esteem
This means that you’re not reliant on achieving X, Y or Z to feel good about who you are.
You’re able to update your view of yourself as you grow and develop rather than hold onto unhelpful narratives from childhood or previous experiences.
You have compassion towards yourself and realise you’re trying your best to navigate an imperfect life as an imperfect person. You believe in yourself but are also humble. You connect with your strengths but can also acknowledge and accept your flaws.
Step 8 – Be willing to adapt and adjust where necessary
Being able to adapt and adjust to the ups and downs of life will be one of the most important life skills you can develop. This could be with how you respond and behave or your ability to change beliefs about yourself, others, or the world.
You’re able to entertain different perspectives and outcomes. You’re optimistic about the future but hold expectations lightly because you accept life is unpredictable and uncertain. You can let go of a dogmatic and rigid view of your identity and self-perception.
“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” Victor Frankl
Step 9 - Understanding your emotions
Being able to see your thoughts, emotions and behaviours and how they influence each other in dynamic ways is a valuable part of building emotional intelligence and emotional health. It’s about building the awareness to acknowledge your emotions but to not always react to how you feel.
You’ll have a better relationship with some emotions than others. It’s common to deny or suppress your uncomfortable feelings. Often this can be a subconscious coping mechanism.
If you’re able to accept all your emotions rather than fight against them, you’ll find your mood and overall wellbeing improve.
Understanding your own emotions will also help you understand others’ emotions better, which will allow you to build healthier relationships.
By developing awareness of your triggers, whether these are other people, situations, or thoughts, you will start to improve your emotional intelligence. Overtime you can build more helpful reactions and coping mechanisms which lead to positive outcomes for you and others.
Step 10 – Build autonomy and agency
Autonomy is about having the ability to make your own decisions that are congruent with your values, interests and goals.
Agency is a feeling of control in your life and a faith in yourself that you have the capacity to make a positive influence in your life. That might be with your actions or how you manage your emotions or how you view and perceive your life.
A large proportion of your happiness, health and wellbeing is in your hands. If you nurture healthy relationships, choose to focus on the positives in your life and become more present in the here and now, you won’t just live, you will thrive.
