Are you constantly putting yourself on the backburner and feeling a bit run down? Have you heard of a total wellbeing plan? Not yet?
Well, stay tuned, my friend, because what I’m sharing with you today is a plan to overhaul your entire sense of wellbeing in all the most important areas of your life. This plan will help you learn how to get your life back in balance and improve your overall wellbeing!
What is a total wellbeing plan?
Total wellbeing means that you feel fulfilled in all aspects of your life. In other words, it is your positive experience of holistic good health and happiness in your day-to-day life. It also means you maintain a healthy balance of self-love, social connections, and engagement with your surroundings.
As a result, a total wellbeing plan is an intentional program for daily actions to improve your sense of wellbeing. Here at Clever Girl Finance, we’ve put together a total wellbeing plan that encompasses seven areas of your life:
- Mindset
- Physical health
- Mental health
- Relationships and social health
- Finances
- Beauty and self-care
- Sleep
When you focus on wellbeing in one of these areas, your wellbeing in the other areas of your life should naturally improve as well. So when you focus on multiple aspects of your wellbeing, the better you’ll feel as a whole.
Why is a plan for your total wellbeing important?
Think back to periods of your life when you felt good – you may have felt strong, confident, well-rested, or fulfilled. What was going well in your life?
Most likely, it was a combination of multiple things. When you’re feeling well in one area of your life, that wellness spills over into other areas of your life. (And vice versa, when you’re feeling down in the dumps.)
Taking care of all aspects of your life with a total wellbeing plan can result in your ability to feel fulfilled on a daily basis. This is especially important if you have a demanding career or lifestyle, are a busy mom, or are an entrepreneur struggling with self-care.
Experiencing the benefits of total wellbeing doesn’t have to depend on external factors. A total wellbeing plan helps you take control of your happiness no matter what’s going on around you.
How to create a total wellbeing plan
The most important thing about your total wellbeing plan is that it’s unique to you. The following list contains ideas for how to incorporate seven major components of your life into a total wellbeing plan. The specific actions you take are entirely customizable.
1. Maintain a positive mindset
The first step to creating a total wellbeing plan is to get control of your mindset. Your mindset is ultimately responsible for most other actions – big or small – that you take on daily. Unfortunately, the human brain is hardwired to develop a negative mindset because it’s trying to protect us from external dangers.
The good news is that we can control our mindset. With a little intentionality, we can develop a positive mindset that keeps us open to opportunities. A positive mindset makes it easier to feel motivated to take positive actions every day.
There are many things you can do to develop a healthy mindset. Some people focus on identifying and journaling about their limiting beliefs to overcome them. Other people believe in the power of affirmations to change their self-talk and set themselves up for daily success.
However you cultivate a positive mindset, remember that starting with mindset is key to sticking with your total wellbeing plan.
2. Improve your physical health
Next, your physical health is an essential component of your total wellbeing. Taking care of your physical health isn’t just (or even at all) about losing weight.
Rather, it’s about taking good care of your body, so you feel physically well. Good physical health also decreases your susceptibility to illness and disease.
There are two primary components of your physical wellness: diet and physical fitness. Again, taking care of your physical self is not about what your body looks like. It’s about feeling energized and healthy so that you can wake up each day operating at peak performance.
Eat a healthy diet
In terms of diet, it’s essential to eat fresh, healthy foods that provide your body with the nutrients and energy you need. Eating the right foods helps you be productive throughout the day.
And even though losing weight isn’t the end goal, eating healthy foods can naturally help you maintain a healthy weight for your body type. You can make eating healthier easier by meal prepping each week or month. This way you have nutritious meals and snacks already prepared.
Get plenty of exercise
Likewise, physical fitness is also important to keep your body strong and healthy. There are many ways to engage in physical fitness activities that you actually enjoy. Unless you genuinely love going to the gym, I do not recommend torturing yourself day in and day out sweating in a gym.
Instead, find a physical fitness activity that brings you joy. Perhaps your physical fitness routine looks like walking in your neighborhood or riding your bike to work.
If you love swimming, join a community recreation center with a pool. If you like rollerblading, buy a pair of rollerblades! Or, try one of these 15 workout ideas for people who hate exercise.
Create a diet and physical fitness plan that works for you and your lifestyle. It doesn’t matter what you do. It just matters that you’re doing something to care for your physical health as part of your total wellbeing.
3. Mind your mental health
Of course, it’s just as critical to take care of your mental health when it comes to total wellbeing. Taking care of your mental health allows you to operate at full potential at work, in your relationships, and when you’re by yourself. Just like with physical health, there are myriad ways to take care of your mental health.
For most people, a sustainable work-life balance is one of the best ways to care for yourself mentally. If you have a terrible work-life balance, there’s only so much you can do to control it yourself. Until you can find a long-term solution, consider talking with your boss or coworkers to create as much balance as possible.
Other ways to take care of your mental health might include talking with a therapist, setting boundaries, maintaining your social connections, or checking in with yourself regularly through journaling, meditation, or prayer.
As with other components of your total wellbeing plan, how you take care of yourself mentally and improve your mental space is unique to you.
4. Improve your relationships and social health
Positive relationships and healthy social connections are a huge component of total wellbeing. It’s no secret that spending quality time with loved ones is good for our total wellbeing. Good social health can also positively impact other areas of our lives, such as physical health and mental health.
To optimize the time you spend with loved ones, create a plan for how you want to spend that time. Perhaps you want to minimize the presence of phones and screens so you can more intentionally focus on each other. Or you can plan special activities that foster the opportunity for intimate conversations.
But of course, managing social relationships can be stressful, too. Spending time with unhealthy people can negatively influence your total wellbeing. If you find that any of your loved ones have a destructive impact on your mental health, it may be time to implement boundaries with those people in your life.
Ultimately, you have the power to decide how you want to be treated in close relationships. Although setting boundaries can be challenging, your total wellbeing is of utmost importance.
5. Take control of your finances
Financial health both influences and is influenced by wellbeing in the other six areas of your life. Cultivating healthy financial habits makes it easier to take care of your physical health, mental health, and even social health.
Although managing finances can be stressful, poor financial health can easily crumble your total wellbeing plan. Financial wellbeing may look different for everyone. But good financial health typically involves budgeting, knowing where you stand financially, and being able to cover unexpected expenses as they arise.
To help you develop financial wellbeing, start with our completely free “Build a solid foundation bundle” to transform your money mindset. This free course bundle will also help you organize your finances, create the right financial goals, and follow a budget that works.
6. Establish a beauty and self-care routine
Beauty and self-care health is another vital part of your total wellbeing. Just as physical health is about much more than losing weight, beauty and self-care health is about developing habits that make you feel good – not just in the moment – but over the long term.
Beauty and self-care routines are often much more than bubble baths and face peels. Those things are nice and may work well for you, but self-care might also look like:
- Working on your mindset
- Building in time to exercise
- Regularly updating your budget
- Setting healthy boundaries
- Avoiding unhealthy foods and substances
- Giving your body enough rest
Of course, beauty health might also involve your skincare and makeup routines. To align your beauty routine with your total wellbeing, focus on purchasing products that make you feel good. That might involve budgeting for luxurious products and avoiding unplanned makeup and beauty hauls. Or it might involve practicing a minimalist skincare routine to cut back on costs.
You can also align your beauty routine with other closely-held values, such as only purchasing beauty products that are sustainable or cruelty-free. As with all parts of your total wellbeing plan, your beauty and self-care routine should be unique to you.
7. Get quality sleep
Finally, getting enough sleep is one of the most important things you can do for your total wellbeing. You need a sleep routine that fosters healthy sleep. And you need a sleep schedule that allows you to get the right amount of sleep for optimal energy.
One best practice is to put your phone and other screens away before bed. LED screens emit light that wakes our brains up. Our phones also contain distractions that stimulate our brains into wakefulness. Looking at screens too close to bedtime does not foster healthy sleep.
Instead, use the 30 minutes you have before bed to do something calming. Practice self-care, journal, meditate, read a good book, or do something else that’s relaxing or soothing.
How to stick with your total wellbeing plan
Implementing a total wellbeing plan is something that takes time and commitment. You won’t always remember or feel like following through with your new wellbeing actions. That’s okay. There are things you can do to make following your plan easier.
Habit-formation expert James Clear recommends associating your new habits with existing habits, so they’re easier to remember. For example, imagine you want to build a meditation practice into your morning routine.
If you already drink coffee in the mornings, you can plan to meditate right after you hit the “on” button on your coffee machine. By combining your new habit with an existing habit, you’ll be more likely to perform the new activity.
For other habits, you might simply be resistant to one or more of them in the beginning. Find ways to combine those habits with an activity you already enjoy. For example, I recently decided that I could only watch my favorite TV show was when I was on the stationary bike at the gym. I’ve never been to the gym more consistently since I implemented that “rule” for myself!
Most importantly, remember that failing to implement your new habits or actions one day (or even two days, or three days!) doesn’t make you a failure. It’s never too late to re-implement your positive actions after you’ve regressed for some time. In fact, that’s the best possible thing you can do for your total wellbeing.
Improve your life with a total wellbeing plan!
Implementing a total wellbeing plan can improve the seven major areas of your life in big ways. When you create and follow a total wellbeing plan, you might only be incorporating small actions into your daily life. But performing those actions consistently over time may result in a more fulfilling, more energizing, and more invigorating life overall.
For more motivation and ideas to reach your goals, don’t forget to subscribe to the Clever Girls Know podcast and YouTube channel!
