Personal Wellbeing Success: A step by step guide

As you'd imagine, we spend a lot of our time helping individuals make sense of the mass of healthy living information in the world.  It's our job to ensure they feel motivated and inspired to make the changes and get the results that work for them and their specific desires and circumstances.

Getting great results with wellbeing is simple when you know how

It boils down to a straightforward 10-step process.  Anyone who follows each of these steps is GUARANTEED positive results with their health, wellbeing and personal performance.

Try it for yourself or pass the strategy to others in the business who you think might find it useful.

1. Be very clear on the wellbeing results you are going to achieve

2. Be specific about when you will achieve these results

3. Identify what you currently know that will help you reach your goals quickly

4. Identify what you currently do that will help you reach your goals quickly

5. Identify any gaps in your wellbeing knowledge that could slow your progress towards your goals.  Find out how you can plug these gaps

6. Sketch out a personal wellbeing plan that includes a selection of key ideas, attitudes, strategies, routines and habits which you think will help you achieve your desired results.  Your plan should be a blue-sky vision of the daily lifestyle choices, activities and decisions that you know deep down are right for you, your objectives and your circumstances

7. Put your plan into action immediately

8. Use your plan to take consistent, daily action towards your goals

9. Review your plan regularly, judging it against your desired time line and results, and make adjustments accordingly. Experiment with new behaviors to speed up progress or amend your deadline to ensure it is realistic.

10. Celebrate success and update your goals regularly. Always have specific targets in mind, even if the target is to maintain your current wellbeing results.  If you have a goal you can measure progress at every stage and every lifestyle choice you make can be judged in relation to your targets.  Without a goal, daily choices become blurry, reactive and ill-defined. 

If you'd like to read more about how to develop effective wellbeing strategies for the individuals in your organisation, download our free guide at the right hand side of this page.

Read more on this article...

Free Toolkit To Boost Health & Energy In Your Organisation

To make it easy to keep your staff healthy, happy, engaged and motivated, sign up for our free wellness toolkit.  

The toolkit includes access to everything you need to inspire colleagues to get active, eat well, sleep better, build personal resilience and achieve a balanced lifestyle.  

The toolkit contains:

• Regular wellbeing tips: practical advice for your colleagues and strategic input for your business

• A regularly updated catalogue of fact sheets on key wellbeing topics

• Real world reviews of wellness initiatives in action to help you refine your ideal programme

• A complimentary wellbeing audit for your business - the simplest way to pinpoint how to take the wellbeing of your staff to the next level

• Preferential rates on our wellbeing workshops leading to results like these: 'More energy, less stress, get fit and eat well'

• Preferential rates on our wellbeing days and events generating feedback like this: 'How to run an amazing wellbeing event'

To receive your free company wellness toolkit all you need to do is email us at info@the-tonic.com and write 'wellness toolkit' in the subject line.

Read more on this article...

How to Eat Well on a Plane

Continuing our 'Healthy Living for Traveling Executives' series, today we're looking at how to maintain a good food routine while traveling by plane.

I've often heard executives say their trips get off to a bad start simply because airline food is so poor.  My response is the same as it would be for any area of healthy eating.  The more you leave things to chance and make decisions at the last minute based on how others are catering for you, the greater the likelihood of you having to settle for something that isn't right for you and your energy levels.  

So don't leave anything to chance.  Plan ahead in the following areas and you can step off the plane feeling refreshed and energised:

1) Check the airline's catering options at the time of booking your ticket and make specific requests if necessary.  Remember you don't have to be a vegetarian to eat the vegetarian option of the meat based meals don't appeal to you.  You'll probably be surprised at the range of options available from most airlines for those who do a quick bit of research before take off.

2) Decide in advance what you'll do with each section of your journey.  What will you do at the airport and what will you do with each hour on the plane?  This includes how much time you'll spend working, dealing with emails, making calls, reading for research, leisure reading, listening to music, eating, drinking and sleeping.  Then plan your food routine accordingly.

If you want to minimise the disruption of your travel, aim to follow a food schedule that's similar to your regular routine.  If you don't plan ahead, you may not be as efficient with your time which can lead to stress which can in turn lead to poor food and drink choices.  Also, without prior planning, you run the risk of mindless eating where you are grazing while attending to other tasks.  This can lead to overeating and too much alcohol.

3) Pay attention to the quantity of food you are consuming.  People often eat to relieve the tedium of travel or eat more simply because of the proximity of so much food.  There's no need to eat in the lounge and then eat everything that's on offer on the plane.  Be selective and choose fresh options that your body can process easily while you are stuck on the plane in a less than ideal position for comfortable digestion.

4) Decide on an alcohol strategy.  A little alcohol may help you relax and sleep but, given that the effects of alcohol are magnified on a plane, it's likely to be just a small quantity that will do you good.  Too much and you'll feel dehydrated, sluggish and make poor food choices.  Regardless of how much alcohol you drink, pay special attention to staying hydrated.  Always drink more water than alcohol or coffee.

Follow these guidelines and you'll get your trip off to a great healthy start which will set the tone of the days to follow.

If you think people in your business would benefit from targeted wellbeing advice we can help you set up a wellness programme that will have a real positive impact.

Visit www.the-tonic.com to download your copy of our new guide “Successful Corporate Wellbeing Programmes: How to create a dynamic, energised and engaged workforce and boost business results”

Read more on this article...

Inspiring Wellness Success Stories 2

Continuing our series highlighting the amazing results that are possible with a wellness programme, we hear from Helen who begins the summary of her journey by saying,

'I was "Executive –pretend Fit". Fit on the outside – ticked the image boxes (went to gym, good BMI) but I was not well.

There are millions of us out there at senior executive levels – pretending we are doing the right things but feeling rubbish – especially after work when the day's stresses and poor nutrition catch up with us and we reach for a glass of wine.

I am a health professional who, despite a background in and understanding of, preventative health, still benefitted greatly from my time with you and the team'.

• The date of the wellness programme you attended

Sep/Oct 2011

• The lifestyle changes you made during programme

Better eating. I already was attending gym and doing yoga classes, my weight was fine but my nutrition was hopeless. 

• The lifestyle changes you made following your programme

I changed jobs. But I also stepped up from ordinary yoga to Bikram (hot) yoga. I try and attend 2-3 90 minute classes per week. It's been brilliant. I still do my weights resistance classes (Pump) at gym. The big change is that I seriously cut back my alcohol consumption from 1 1/2 glasses per night to maybe one glass a month. This is without doubt the best thing I have ever done.

• The secrets of your success with wellness

The Bikram yoga has really challenged my mindfulness and ability to de-stress with consciousness. The reduction in alcohol consumption was triggered by an event in Australia called "Dry July" where volunteers give up drinking for a month to support cancer research. This gave me the trigger (and the excuse with my friends and colleagues) to not drink for the month and then it was easy to keep going. It was far easier than I thought it would be.

• What advice that you received made the greatest impact on you?

Better nutrition.

• The biggest benefits of making your lifestyle changes?

Where to start? Transformational. Energy++, love the yoga and gym combination – neither one sufficient on their own for me.

• Anything that got in the way of success with wellness

I think the psychology of change is underestimated. The impact of Dry July was an important trigger for me to make the change. For example, if you say at a dinner party that you/re not drinking – you embarrass those who are or you seem a prima donna. If you have the trigger of a charity support or similar, it helps. This is just an example. But these triggers are significant enablers – or the lack of them serious impediments.

• When wellness is working for you, what are the key elements that make the difference?

Breakfast yes, no alcohol after work and a careful dinner - no snacking.

Professor Helen Chenery

The University of Queensland

Read the previous instalment of our Inspiring Success Stories series

Image by jhenryrose Flickr

Read more on this article...

Whole Foods to 'bribe' staff into being healthy

Having decided that 'we sell a bunch of junk' Whole Foods Chief Executive John Mackey has gone on to suggest that his staff need to be able to advise people better about the choices they make in his stores and also that they must lead by example by looking and behaving more healthy themselves.

We're all for good incentives to encourage people to make choices that work for them but this seems to have a little bit more of the stick than the carrot about it and could lead to some interesting repercussions. Will staff respond well or will they rebel? Will they have a choice? I'll be keeping an eye on developments at my local store to see how this all develops...

Read more on this article...