To kick off the year, I did a Well-Being Checkup and it turned out to be a really great practice, so I'm sharing it with you.
It's incredibly simple: Take a few minutes and reflect on the following 3 questions:
- What are some things you did in 2019 that helped you feel and be you best?
- What are some things I did that depleted your well-being?
- What 3 specific things are you going to do in 2020 to fuel yourself and support your well-being?
Here's a fun worksheet you can use for your Well-Being Checkup! (Here's the link to download it: My Well-Being Checkup)
I want to help you feel your best this year!
So we're offering our popular 21-Day Happier Challenge at a super special price through January 13th just for the Happier community!
Taking this challenge will help you to:
- Take better care of yourself
- Have less stress and more energy
- Feel joyful and content -- more often
- Practice self-compassion more often
- Have more positive relationships
- Be more fulfilled and motivated at work
- Make self-care and rest a priority
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If you're curious, here's my Well-Being Checkup:
What are some things I did in 2019 that helped me feel and be my best?
- Created “No Calls” days and put them on my calendar, especially after a string of speaking engagements or travel (stuck to these for the most part). I’m more of an introvert than I sometimes allow myself to remember and having lower interaction days after big energy outputs really helped.
- Started packing healthy snacks for travel (veggies and hummus, grass fed beef jerky, nuts, Kind bars). Loved doing this for myself, it felt like a friend taking care of me.
- Immediately after a speaking engagement, book signing or workshop, I took 10-15 minutes to be quiet, meditate, do a little Qi Gong, just be still and silent. (I this about ½ the time and when I did, it was absolutely essential for my recovery and feeling more energetic the next day.)
- When I found myself with thoughts of scarcity or fear (e.g. what if this doesn’t work, etc.) I practiced adding a thought of gratitude for something specific right away. I set this as my intention at the beginning of the year and it was a powerful way to pair a negative habit that didn’t serve me with a positive one. I was surprised at how effective this was and I feel that I have fewer thoughts of doubt and can shift out of them quicker now.
What are some things I did that depleted my well-being?
- Not have recovery days after speaking. We try to never have me do two speaking gigs in a row (I really don’t know how speakers who do this regularly find the energy to be at their best!), but often after a day of speaking and traveling I would dive head first into work and doing stuff for and with my family the next day. This made me more exhausted, drained energy, and I often got sick. I recognize that I still had a lot of fear around resting and doing less.
- Not slowing down work before I got exhausted. I’ve gotten a lot better at not over-working or over-efforting, but I can still push too hard and get past the point of exhaustion—and my work past that point isn’t all that great.
- Doubting whether things will work out, whether opportunities will come, whether our business will grow. While I made some progress in this area (see above), it was still a big drain on my energy and well-being. I recognize this is a long-held habit so being patient with myself as I keep working on shifting from doubt to belief.
- Not asking for help and delegating often enough. I spent most of my life as a martyr—martyr leader, martyr mom—thinking I need to do it all and actually finding satisfaction in being that way (this is hard to admit but I want to be honest about it). I’ve gotten much better, but I found many times this year when I would just push through and do stuff and get really tired and not ask for help, both with work stuff and home stuff.
3 specific things I’m going to do in 2020 to fuel my well-being
- Schedule recovery days and ask my family and team to help me stick to them. After I speak or do a workshop, I’m going to schedule the next day as recovery (and only make exceptions if they truly can’t be avoided, being honest about that with myself). Recovery days mean I don’t do calls, limit work that I do to reflection and creativity, and take it easy on stuff like cooking meals for fam or hanging out with them. I know I need help sticking to this so I’m going to ask my family and team to be my allies (ahem, call me out when I’m cheating myself of rest.)
- Practice less doubt and more believing by asking: “Is this helpful?” I find that I can quickly shift out of indulging thoughts of doubt, worry, or scarcity if I ask myself how these thoughts are helpful to me. The answer 99% of the time is that they aren’t and are just draining my energy, which helps me to either let them go or shift into more positive energy thoughts.
- Drink more water. Such a simple thing but I really don’t drink enough water, which gives me headaches and makes me sluggish. So going to be drinking water any chance I get and carrying my water bottle with me around the house when I’m not traveling.
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