Turning Wellness Challenges Into Wins

Think back to the last time you arrived at a new place in mind, body or spirit.  Perhaps you achieved a wellness milestone, started a new job or project, or made it through a life transition of some sort.  Think about how good that felt.  Were you proud?  Relieved?  Happy?

Now think back further.  What prompted you to make the change?  Most likely it was some sort of challenge, either an internal realization, like dissatisfaction, stagnation or a new desire, or there was an external event that prompted the action.

In my book, The Athena Principles. Simple Wellness Practices for Overworked Professionals, I share three wellness turning points where I felt like I was a crossroads – scared and uncertain, but knowing I had to make some changes.  Each time, it felt like I was facing an insurmountable challenge, like I was trapped in the way things were with no way out.  But, looking back, I can see I had numerous options, but I was too mired in the situation to objectively identify and assess my alternatives.

I was lucky.  My wellness challenges were not born out of crisis, which allowed me to make deliberate changes that built over time.  This first one was focused on exercise and nutrition when I was in my mid-thirties.  Getting physically healthy prepared me to go deeper with subsequent realizations of dealing with mental and emotional burnout from a long career on Wall Street and then with a spiritual alignment at a writer’s retreat that led me to live a more purposeful, values-driven life.

For many people, though, the need to focus on health may be more immediate through a diagnosis or a test result.  Conversely, the call toward wellness may feel vague, like more of an elusive pull to incorporate healthier and more meaningful life choices.

So many of us want to make healthier choices – we want to turn our wellness challenges into wins – but don’t know where to start or feel we don’t have the time.  But lasting, meaningful change happens one step at a time.  As a result of taking the smallest of actions, we can experience a boost in vibrance, confidence and alignment with our deepest selves.  This creates momentum that paves the way for bigger changes over time.

Challenges are not immovable objects.  Everything shifts and changes over time – people, places, experiences, personal and professional situations.  The old adage is true – the only constant is change, although when we’re ready, change can feel like it’s happening too slowly.

If you’re feeling stuck and it seems like you’re out of options, here are a few ways to reframe your challenges as opportunities and create a path forward:

• Use your crisis (or challenge) as fuel.  There’s a saying in the corporate world, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.”  Crisis opens our thinking to actions we wouldn’t have taken prior.  It’s a way of reordering what felt like fixed set points by re-examining the situation, questioning “the way it’s always been done” and finding new solutions.  When I began to make changes to my exercise and nutrition habits 20 years ago, it landed me on a wellness path that would someday become my passion and livelihood.

• Rethink your question.  It’s healthy to use fresh perspectives and new solutions to old problems.  When I decided to leave Wall Street, it wasn’t about stopping the burnout I was experiencing; it was about integrating the things I loved into my life.  Six years after that, the life change I wanted to make wasn’t about becoming a writer, but more about who am I as a writer and how she can live her life in a way that’s true.

• Break it down.  Challenges are complex and their sheer size can be overwhelming.  My mid-30s exercise plan was a 12-week program that I could plan weekly, execute daily and repeat the cycle over again.  Incremental improvements add up, create momentum and unearth new possibilities.

• Don’t underestimate the emotional component of change.  There will be grief.  You’re heading to a new place and you’re leaving old dreams and ways of being behind.  You’re diving deeper, no longer content to live a surface-level existence.  The people, places and experiences you’ve come to rely on will change as you do.  Had I known all the changes that were ahead of me in my 40s and 50s, I would have been paralyzed by fear.  Looking back from my current vantage point, I can see the necessity of those shifts and how they led to life transformation.

• Keep your eye on the big picture. Have visual reminders of why you’re putting in the effort. In the last year of my corporate career, I wore a necklace that only I knew the meaning of – it was a symbol that reminded me of the new lifestyle I was creating and what I wanted to achieve as a budding entrepreneur in the second half of my life. It put all my effort in context and kept me focused on moving forward – one step at a time.

I hope this process brings some clarity and ease as you turn your wellness challenges into wins.  May you continue to honor yourself by embracing wellness as a vital and ongoing process of making choices to create a healthy, integrated and fulfilling life.

Journal Reflections:  How might you reframe your biggest wellness challenge into an opportunity?  What does life beyond this transformation look like? What’s one small step you can take today?