Today I have been participating in the Workplace Wellness Festival and been enjoying the diversity of information about wellbeing.
I always love having some “aha” moments – so here are a few from Day One.
What is your Emotional Diet?
Often, we can get supercharged with respect to our emotions. We are exposed to environments everyday where we our reactive. We need to consider how we are taking in emotional energy, what kind of energy it is, how we use the energy, whether we are burying the emotions, running with the emotions or hiding the emotions. Remembering that emotions are data, we need to consider our emotional diet and how we are making the most of this energy.
Another key reflection around emotions - do we express our emotions without projecting them onto others.
The Best Way To Care For Yourself Is To Notice Yourself.
When it comes to our wellbeing and mental health, we are often the last ones to recognize that we are struggling. We just try and plough through to the best of our ability, often ignoring the signs and symptoms that are communicating to us that perhaps we are not managing at all. We need to Stop. Take Notice. Take Action.
The WELLO
For many of us in the workplace, we are familiar with the term having “Smocko break”. But the days of half the workforce needing time out to have a smoke are long gone. So, our new opportunity to have a break is to have a “Wello”. This is a wellness break. This can be small breaks of 5-10 mins throughout the day where we can undertake mediation, movement, breathing, stretching, exposure to nature etc.
Work Is What We Do Not Where We Do It
Recently, our ideas about the standard workplace of everyone being in the same physical building have dramatically been challenged. Flexible work arrangements are definitely here to stay so our opportunity is to consider how we manage agile working arrangements and adapt our styles to manage this new normal.
8 Elements of Quality Relationships
Respect, Trust, Concerns, Appreciation, Moods, Coordination of Action, Alignment, Conversations
Consider Appreciation – recognize who people are, not just what they have done.
The Purple Zone
If our Sympathetic Nervous System (Fight/flight, reactive, panic, overwhelm, loss of control) is our Red Zone and our Parasympathetic Nervous System (rest and digest place, pause, recover rebuild communication system, our rest station) is our Blue Zone – then we need to be able to work in our Purple zone. We need to be able to feel motivated and invigorated, without getting to the red zone. When we are at home, we need to be able to access the blue zone and actively gain recovery and build resilience.
The Gap Between Knowing and Doing
Many of us know what we need to do to enhance our wellbeing. The issue is we are not engaging in what we know we should be doing.
Our Body Listens To Our Thoughts
How we think about what is happening to us is even more important than what is actually happening. We recognize that our body and our brain our continually talking and your body gains insights from what you are thinking. So, consider our greatest ability is to choose one thought over another. Perhaps then the messages our body receives are positive and enhance energy rather than deplete it.
Where is the Fun
We have the opportunity to inject something fun that makes us smile and get those endorphins flowing. Today I learned how to “Floss” – no not my teeth – my dancing groove – wow what a dance move – loved it!!
Want to know more about enhancing wellbeing? Send me an email at michelle@bakjacconsulting.com to enquire about building your personal strategies or those of your team or workplace.
Michelle Bakjac is an experienced Psychologist, Organisational Consultant, Coach, Speaker and Facilitator. As Director of Bakjac Consulting, she is a credentialed Coach with the International Coach Federation (ICF) and a member of Mental Toughness Partners and an MTQ48 accredited Mental Toughness practitioner. Michelle assists individuals and organisations to develop their Mental Toughness to improve performance, leadership, behaviour and wellbeing. You can find her at www.bakjacconsulting.com or michelle@bakjacconsulting.com
