As another tax season has come and gone, it’s a perfect time to talk about finances. After reflecting on what’s come in and out of your accounts, you may be forgetting that your personal portfolio of life is impacted by more than IRS mandates. In fact, we think doing a yearly, or even better, quarterly, monthly and daily checks on your WELLNESS accounts can help you feel less taxed and risk you less debt overall!
Just as we invest money into our savings to secure our financial future, we must also invest in our own wellness to ensure a balanced high-quality and high-quantity life. Wellness is much like your financial future, in that overspending and/or not saving can impact your life in the short and long term. Our accounts can be broken down into 8 mini savings accounts thanks to Dr. Peggy Swarbrick, who in 2006, came up with the 8 Dimensions of Wellness, providing a comprehensive framework for understanding total wellness. These dimensions include:
- Physical: This involves maintaining a healthy body through proper nutrition, exercise, and sleep.
- Intellectual: Engaging in creative and stimulating activities that foster learning and mental growth.
- Emotional: Understanding and managing our emotions effectively.
- Social: Building strong relationships and having a support network.
- Spiritual: Finding purpose and meaning in life, which may involve religious beliefs or personal values.
- Occupational: Achieving personal satisfaction and enrichment through work.
- Financial: Managing resources effectively to achieve financial stability.
- Environmental: Recognizing the impact of our surroundings on our well-being.
Think about each of these accounts. Do you have them in place? Are some filled and others withdrawn? Here’s how you can start making deposits in each, today!
- Physical Wellness: Invest time in your tactile life: preparing nutritious meals, exercising regularly, and ensuring adequate sleep—these are your foundational deposits that yield significant returns over time.
- Intellectual Wellness: Earmark resources towards education—read books, take courses, or engage in discussions that challenge your thinking.
- Emotional Wellness: Make deposits by practicing mindfulness or seeking support before needed or at the least – when needed; this helps build emotional resilience.
- Social Wellness: Spending time nurturing relationships with family and friends; these connections are invaluable assets that enhance our quality and quantity of life.
- Spiritual Wellness: Invest time in reflection and contemplation; this enriches our sense of purpose beyond ourselves.
- Occupational Wellness: Pursuing opportunities for professional development; increases job satisfaction and, even better, your earning potential. For retirees, this doesn’t end! In fact, those who retire and lack investing in occupational wellness can have greater struggles with their wellbeing – occupational wellness after the workforce can look like: volunteering, joining clubs, The Wellness Center, etc.
- Financial Wellness: Creating a budget that allows for savings while also allocating funds for health-related expenses such as meaningful memberships and wellness programs.
- Environmental Wellness: Investing effort into creating a living space that promotes health, this could mean decluttering your home or spending more time outdoors.
Just as important as making deposits is understanding how to manage withdrawals from your wellness account. If you neglect physical activity or eat poorly, you may find yourself “overdrawing” on your physical wellness account, leading to fatigue or illness. Sure, we all go on vacation, or take a break for workouts here or there, but overtime, skipping out on eating well or moving, should be seen as overspending on our health, causing a debt, and we want to replace that debt as soon as we can. Emotional stressors can deplete your emotional reserves quickly if not managed properly; regular self-care practices are a great way to build up savings. Lastly, social isolation is one of the quickest ways to lose your savings! This can lead to loneliness—a significant withdrawal from social wellness is costly —so it’s crucial to maintain those connections actively.
To maintain overall wellness, it’s essential to balance all eight accounts effectively. Regularly check-in where you stand in each dimension—are there areas where you’re over-investing at the expense of others? Create a plan that allows for balanced investments across all dimensions so that no single area becomes depleted. And, just like financial investments require monitoring and adjustments based on market conditions, so does your approach to wellness with periodic evaluations needed based on life changes or challenges.
Viewing our personal wellness as a bank account encourages us to be proactive about our health and well-being. If our wellbeing is suffering, chances are we are overspending on our wellness funds! By making thoughtful deposits into each dimension of wellness and being mindful of our withdrawals, we can cultivate a rich life full of vitality and fulfillment. Remember that just like any investment strategy requires commitment and consistency over time, so does investing in your overall wellness. Let your assets grow, try to spend only your gains. If you know you have something coming up, it’s ok to save up like you would for a trip or special event with extra sleep, extra workouts or eating better than you normally would.
In reflection, how is your wellness account doing? Which account will you start to fill up first? Make some savings goals, set up the exact steps you are going to take to get there, and celebrate the successes. Most people wouldn’t skip filing their taxes, and you shouldn’t skip checking in on your own wellness accounts either. Tis the season for balancing our accounts!