How to Achieve the Ultimate State of Wellness

Grant Ian Gamble is a best-selling mindful leadership author and speaker. He has over 30 years of experience in leading teams to create innovative customer experiences, building engaged workforces, and developing leaders who prioritize mindfulness in their approach.

I have been a member of the wellness community for over 35 years now. Graduating from flop socks and spandex in the Australian fitness industry, to building wellness campuses up and down the Atlantic Coast of the U.S.

On that journey, I have worked on wellness initiatives ranging from kids’ wellness programming through to geriatric rehabilitation efforts. As my contributions became less granular and I was able to view more population-based programming, my perspective broadened, and I’ll share some of those observations herein.

Wellness has many aspects. Fitness is certainly a part of it, but equally mental health is an incredibly important component. Nutrition is really important, but that can’t overshadow the need for stress reduction and mindfulness practices.

Zig Ziglar, an esteemed author and motivational speaker, had a great infographic I used a lot in the early days of my management career and that was the “Wheel of Life”. 

As much as I love all these elements and feel this is pretty comprehensive, I think it misses some components  that I see as fundamental to achieving ultimate wellness for you as an individual.

Here are the elements I think need to be included in a holistic view of wellness:

world where an above average number of people live healthier and longer lives than usual.

The term first appeared in a National Geographic cover story in 2005 by Dan Buettner and has been followed by extensive research and initiatives funded by National Geographic to explore this phenomenon.

One of the key findings of Buettner’s work, which was founded on research by Gianni Pes and Michel Poulain, was the determination that the single most important influence on the longevity of the Okinawans is community. In fact, central to every Blue Zones longevity was exactly that – community.

So it seems intuitive that we look at our community relationships, connections, affiliations and contributions when we consider our state of wellness. This is picked up in the Social element of both the Ziglar and the Wellness diagrams, but I feel it needs to be emphasized in our search for our Ultimate State of Wellness.

Buettner determined in his research around the Blue Zones that institutions such as the Moai provide social connectedness that help reduce stress, add to people’s happiness and help community members ultimately live longer and stronger lives. Okinawans have their Moais, Sardinians meet with friends for regular happy hours and Adventists in California host weekly meals with their congregation.

Regardless of the location of the Blue Zone, community is the strongest common thread that runs through every Blue Zone Dan Buettner studied. In a recent study of social connectedness and longevity by Harvard Professor Lisa Berkman, she determined that whether it was familial, a tight-knit group of friends, through volunteerism, or some other form of regular social connection, the bond that the group shared was all that mattered in creating greater health and longevity.

♦ Spiritual Center

Spiritual wellness can be defined as being connected to something greater than yourself and/or having a set of beliefs, morals, principles, and values at your center that provide a sense of purpose and meaning to life. This is particularly true when we use those principles to guide our actions.

It is natural that your spiritual center will usually fluctuate throughout your life. It is also logical that many aspects of overall wellness will contribute to your spiritual wellness, e.g. practicing self-care, being positive and optimistic, volunteering, social connections, and having a sense of belonging.

Some of the ways to enhance your spiritual wellness include practicing meditation or yoga, praying or taking part in organized religion, taking time each day to contemplate life, journaling, spending time in nature, breathing practices and more.

Regardless of the path, finding your spiritual center is a journey and not a destination so don’t forget to stop and smell the roses along the way.

♦ Emotional Balance

Emotional wellness was defined by the Wellness Center of Vanderbilt University as “the awareness of feelings and their expression in a healthy manner with stability of mood, sense of self, positive attitude toward others, and the ability to cope with stress”.

As with all things in balance, different elements counter each other and for example during times of heightened stress, having confidence that this too shall pass will help you navigate those tough times. 

Also, accepting others and forgiving mistakes they may have made allows you to move forward and maintain healthy relationships.  Equally, you need to accept the mistakes that litter your past and move on with a determination to learn and ultimately benefit from these mistakes.

Having a positive mental attitude can contribute greatly to your ability to find the good in people, mistakes and events that may otherwise derail your emotional wellness.

♦ Healthy Relationships

Healthy relationships underpin wellness on so many levels. This often falls under the social category on wellness wheels, but I feel it deserves its own space. Healthy relationships nurture us, complement us, grow us and challenge us, all of which is incredibly beneficial to our overall wellness.

But how do you gauge your relationships? I don’t think volume gives perspective to the wellness benefits we glean from our relationships. The introvert may treasure fewer relationships whereas the gregarious extrovert may see more friends as their happy place.

I speak to a number of these facets in my book, “The Affinity Principle”. This book is about mindful leadership, which if distilled down, is about building and nurturing healthy relationships with your team and other parties with whom you work.

In essence, maintaining healthy relationships demands flexibility and adaptability.

It demands that we are present and attentive. Maintaining strong healthy relationships is rarely seamless and does require effort, but the benefits of healthy friendships and partnerships far outweigh any efforts we make to meet in the middle.

Let’s look at nutrition first. Nutrition provides fuel for our body to move and perform its countless functions. That fuel converts to energy and even though the body needs a complex mix of vitamins, minerals, protein, fat and carbohydrates, varied and healthful nutritional choices can provide those components pretty readily.

What is deemed to be healthful nutritional choices will always raise a lot of competing opinions and thoughts, but there are a couple of simple rules of thumb to help steer you in the right direction.

1. Eat low on the food chain. This is a simple way to differentiate between food and foodlike substances. Foodlike substances have been heavily processed and contain a lot of ingredients of which many are unrecognizable to the average person reading the ingredient label.

I believe eating too much in a sitting, especially at night, is tough on your body so I recommend eating small meals throughout the day.

4. Try and keep your input balanced against your output. Meaning, if you exercise a lot, eat more. If you don’t do a lot of exercise, eat less. Your body will seek balance and if you listen to it, you can usually feel when you’re out of balance.

5. That leads me to my last point on nutrition. Avoid the scales. Judging your state of health or wellness by the scales is fraught with peril. I suggested in the previous point to listen to your body. Too often we ignore our body’s many signals and sometimes warnings because we don’t listen to how we feel. Those are hard things to grasp when we’ve ignored our body’s many cries and too often listened to its cravings. Simple examples of listening to your body would be if you feel energetic, that’s a good sign. If you feel lethargic, that’s probably a bad sign.

Even though many sports drinks have sodium and other electrolytes added, they can also contain sugar, artificial colors, flavors and additives. Mineral water usually contains sodium and can be a refreshing drink as well as replace some of the sodium lost during activity. Pure coconut water is also a great alternative electrolyte drink that doesn’t contain any unwanted ingredients.

The level of your activity and many other factors influence the amount of water you need, but if you feel lethargic, have a headache, or dry mouth, then you should try drinking more water. Instead of defaulting to a cup of coffee when you’re feeling tired, maybe try a glass of water and see if you feel the difference.

Essentially, we should drink plenty of water each day, and that may constitute 8-10 glasses or so. 

Your body is an incredibly powerful system that will work very well, given the right ingredients.

When you’re thoughtful about your food and water intake, you’ll notice a positive difference in many aspects of your life.

For me, reading and writing are great ways for me to improve my language and in turn express my thoughts. Just as our food choices impact our bodily functions, what we read matters, too.

Ultimately, what we feed into our mental furnace will determine the quality of the output. 

Equally, when we challenge our mind with new ideas, synthesizing information and integrating this with new knowledge, our brains fire up in positive and fruitful ways. Much like our muscles, when we exercise our brain, it gets stronger.

The retention of this knowledge and learning is also critical. With memory impairment at epidemic levels, we must consciously exercise this cognitive function and give our brain the nutrients and environmental stimulation necessary to maintain optimal memory where possible, especially in our later years.

Knowing now that I have an attention deficit, I have worked diligently to exercise focus and improve my ability to be present.

With the onslaught of attention-grabbing bites of information swirling past us at incredible rates, it is no wonder that attention deficit has risen to epidemic proportions.

Avoiding or slowing this cacophony of tantalizing tidbits is tough and so exercising our ability to focus on a conversation, a task, or even a thought process is critical. Becoming aware of this challenge was the first step for me. Exercising my attention muscle remains challenging, but fulfilling when I can minimize the number of intermissions my brain takes in any given process.

I have worked with people who were incredibly sleep deprived and witnessed the debilitating effect lack of sleep can have even on highly functioning individuals.

Yet, getting good sleep has become more and more elusive for many people. Given that we often spend more time sleeping than any other single activity we need to give it due reverence.

When we sleep, we heal.

When we sleep, we rejuvenate. When we sleep, our bodies and our minds renew and rebuild. To me, good sleep is one of the non-negotiables for health and ultimate wellness. To this end, I have written a separate article on sleep, which dives deeper into this critical part of wellness. 

Much research and learning has transpired between then and now and we now know that exercise can be beneficial in small amounts and light doses.

My strong recommendation is simply to move regularly, choose to walk where you have the choice, choose to take the steps and not the elevator, find ways to incorporate movement throughout your day and you will benefit from these small changes in how you approach movement.

If you choose to move more by finding a form of exercise to do, choose something that is as enjoyable as possible for you.

If you can’t find any form of exercise that you find palatable, then find a reason to motivate movement in spite of your reticence.

4. If you like keeping score, track your movement. Whether you use an app or device to track your steps, record your miles on the bike, or simply journal your movement activities, if this helps motivate you, just do it.

5. Lastly, I really recommend finding an exercise partner, group, or option where you may add a social component to your exercise. This can also help motivate you on the tough days and may help you add to your community.

SIDE NOTE: As much as moving often is incredibly beneficial, having restful sleep is complementary to movement. In fact, moving more will improve the quality of your sleep and enjoying  good sleep will benefit your desire and ability to move.  

“The environmental ceiling consists of nine planetary boundaries (climate change, ocean acidification, stratospheric ozone depletion, disruption of the nitrogen and phosphorus cycles, global freshwater use, land use changes, biodiversity loss, aerosol loading in the atmosphere, and chemical pollution), as set out by Rockstrom et al, beyond which lie unacceptable environmental degradation and potential tipping points in Earth systems.”

Raworth added the human wellbeing dimensions, drawing on the United Nations’ 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) to transform our world, which are derived from internationally agreed upon minimum social standards.

This seems most apt as a way to encapsulate our own sense of what a balanced environment should look like for us. 

When considering our environment we obviously must start in our own backyard, but our awareness and actions must extend out to the planetary boundaries Raworth drew upon for her model.

Our environmental wellness is tenuous at best when we ignore our impact on the planet that we live on.

fear often replaces wonder and we end up pigeonholing creativity as the domain of the artist or musician.

Yet, in its simplest form we are actually being creative every day when we choose the clothes we’re going to wear, the route we’ll take to work and even what we’ll cook for dinner. From a neuroplasticity standpoint the more we vary these things, for example our route to get to work, the more we stimulate the creative elements of our brain.

Being open to new possibilities, remaining curious about the world around us, and being willing to make mistakes and accept that they are the ultimate learning tool are all prerequisites to igniting creativity within. If we embrace these attributes, creativity and its many benefits will follow.

SIDE NOTE: A few years ago, my wife, Jana, was encouraged to explore her creativity in order to help heal from a chronic pain condition. She was a creative professional, but wasn’t creatively expressing herself outside of her work. She began tinkering with paint and canvases and seeking a medium through which to express herself. The number of cast aside canvases and attempts at new creative mediums mounted and so did her creative juices.

Amazing works of art started flowing from her and we ended up building an art studio to allow her to continue to create. Now, she has commissioned works, shows in galleries, and sells (and gives away) many pieces.

But the journey was not about selling her art, it was about creativity. For her, it proved to be a very powerful healing tool. She demonstrated what I am encouraging you to do.

Be willing to make mistakes, explore without fear, play with abandon and many wonderful things will ensue.

Occasionally, you will meet people who always knew what they wanted to be, but more often people struggle to find that sweet spot that gives them career satisfaction and financial fulfilment.

Most importantly, know thyself. If you can make a difference doing something that you are gifted to do, or have a particular forte in, work can become easier and more fulfilling.

In my book, “The Affinity Principle,” I talk about a concept called flow.

The flow state was defined by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi as a state of complete immersion in an activity.

While in this mental state, people are completely involved and focused on what they are doing. When this occurs in our chosen career, it is an incredible gift. 

You can chase the perks, status and salary, but if what you do doesn’t resonate within you, finding that Zen state of flow will likely be an elusive goal.

These are some simple guides you can use to review your financial wellness. Most importantly, keep your financial wellness in perspective. It is not directly proportionate to your net worth; it is directly proportionate to your overall level of personal satisfaction with your current finances.

SIDE NOTE: In studies, it has been determined that the level of happiness a person experiences elevates with income up to a certain point. Researchers have found that happiness doesn’t change much once that threshold of income has been reached. Andrew T. Jebb, the lead author on a study that defined these thresholds across the world said,

“There’s a certain point where money seems to bring no more benefits to well-being in terms of both feelings and your evaluation.”

Change will come incrementally at first, and grow on these foundations of self-awareness. 

When we approach this process knowing that it is a process, small changes build on each other and can create substantial positive change over time. Setbacks are inevitable, but by maintaining a positive mindset around the change you seek, momentum will grow. As you build and balance these elements, unanticipated rewards will follow.