Lighthouse’s mentor program has always highlighted a holistic approach to wellbeing. That starts with self-reflection. And, it often means nudging participants to uncover what they want to achieve or what needs to shift in their lives. But, no matter what stage these women are at in their lives – it all comes back to their wellbeing. So, how would you rate your wellbeing?
What is Wellbeing?
Merriam-Webster defines wellbeing as ‘the state of being happy, healthy or successful’.
Specifically, wellbeing is about the combination of many things. Our love for what we do each day. The quality of our relationships. The security of our finances. The vibrancy of our physical health, and the pride we take in what we have contributed to our communities.
All those factors provide a holistic road map to living a fulfilled life. And, to nurture our happiness and elevate our wellbeing.
The Five Essential Elements of Wellbeing
In the book, ‘Wellbeing: The Five Essential Elements’, authors Tom Rath and Jim Harter partnered with psychologists, economists and scientists to explore common elements of wellbeing in more than 150 countries.
As a result, they discovered that people with thriving wellbeing have 41% lower health-related costs. Namely, ‘thriving wellbeing’ provides improved physical and mental health, increased energy and improved concentration as benefits.
Hence, it’s obvious boosting your wellbeing is a critical part of living a productive life.
Through this research, five universal elements emerged that shape our lives:
- Career Wellbeing
- Community Wellbeing
- Social Wellbeing
- Financial Wellbeing
- Physical Wellbeing
The Most Critical of the Five Elements
Their research uncovered that career wellbeing is the most critical of the five elements. But, career may be something different than you think.
To clarify, “career” is actually defined as:
‘what you do each day and how you occupy your time, including work, home and family care, volunteer work, community participation, school or other activities’.
Further, the research revealed that if you don’t have the opportunity to regularly do something you enjoy, the odds of having high wellbeing in other areas diminishes. So, people with high career wellbeing are more than twice as likely to be thriving in their lives overall.
It’s about how those five elements interact. While 66% of people are doing well in at least one of these areas, only 7% are thriving in all five. In other words, we are not getting the most out of our lives unless we are living effectively in all five.
People with high Career Wellbeing have a purpose in life and wake up every morning with something to look forward to doing that day and a way to use their strengths. Scientists also found lower stress levels, greater levels of happiness and satisfaction, and even better cholesterol levels in those who were engaged for much of their workday.
3 Tips to Boost Career Wellbeing
So, do you like what you do each day? Apparently, only 20% of those Gallup studied can give a strong “yes” in response.
To illustrate, the authors offer these three recommendations to boost Career Wellbeing:
- Determine your strengths and use them in whatever role you fill.
- Identify someone with a shared mission who encourages your growth and spend more time with this person.
- Find ways to engage socially with the people you enjoy being around at work and in life.
Career wellbeing, like all forms of wellbeing is developed through practice. Following the above tips and working to align your skills in a role that brings purpose and meaning to your life goes a long way to elevating your happiness in all areas.
How It All Ties Together
This does not mean working too much at the expense of other areas. In fact, research suggested those with high career wellbeing actually don’t take things for granted. They also take more time to enjoy life and this results in them loving the work they do.
SO TELL ME: How would you rate your wellbeing? Does any one of the five elements of wellbeing need nurturing? Reach out if you’d like to explore that a little bit. I love to share the tools and resources I’ve gathered over the years!