Five Lifestyle Tweaks to help Support Better Wellbeing: by Wanda Malhotra of Authority Magazine.
It was my honor to be interviewed recently by Wanda Malhotra with Authority Magazine. I was one of many women in wellness to share 5 lifestyle tweaks that could lead to stronger wellbeing. We had a lovely discussion about learning through mistakes. I have definitely made my fair share. As a recovering perfectionist, there was a time in my life when I saw mistakes very differently than I do today. Back then, any small mistake would have sent me spiraling. Now, if I am not making mistakes, it means I am not pushing myself our of my comfort zone enough.
Empowering
After discussing recent mistakes made and lessons learned, she asked how my work and the work of all of us at Empower Counseling is impacting the world. Wow, great question. It happens to all of us at some point no matter how mindful and intentional we are…we get busy. This question during this interview provided a great opportunity for me to reflect on my/our mission and visions at Empower Counseling and actually grade us on how we are doing.
I replied, “In a nutshell, the work I do in my practice is empowering clients to be the best version of themselves and to be productive toward their value-aligned goals so they experience the strongest well-being and most fulfilling life possible.”
I further explained how we accomplish this, “Often as teens and young adults, we blindly live by these rules even when they don’t resonate with us. When we take action toward beliefs and rules that we have adopted but we don’t align with, we experience cognitive dissonance- an incongruity between the person we are being and the person we want to be. Cognitive dissonance creates discomfort, stress, and anxiety. We guide clients through Acceptance Commitment Therapy to uncover the troublesome shoulds and rules by which they are living that are fueling cognitive dissonance.” Then we help client find clarity about their own values so they can begin living according to their own rules.
Even though I have made many mistakes along the way, and it hasn’t always been pretty, I can say we are definitely living our mission and our vision at Empower Counseling. I am proud of that.
Here are the 5 Lifestyle Tweaks I suggested in Wanda’s article:
- Uncover your shoulds: To begin to live a more authentic and fulfilling life we must first understand the rules we are living by that are not working for us. I provided further explanation and examples in the article.
- Discover your values and how you want to prioritize them. This provides a clear path toward being the person you want to be.
- Let go of perfectionism. Honestly, I wish I had back all of my years spent as a hard core perfectionist. I would spend my time differently and enjoy it much much more. Oh well, I can’t have that time back. But I can make sure I enjoy life to the fullest now, and part of that is helping others separate from the perfectionism that is stealing joy and opportunities from them.
- Adopt a “life is one big expereiment” attitude. This is the opposite of what perfectionists do. This is definitely the way to go. When life is an expereiment, the word failure has no place in it.
- Set boundaries to protect your values. SO many of my clients struggle to set boundaries and they are constantly taken advantage of because of it. Often times they do not know where to start. I tell them that first you must be clear on what is most important to you…what is worth protecting. Then create boundaries designed to protect exactly what is important to you.
We also discussed what movement what bring the most wellness to the most people. And I shared 5 things I wish someone told me before I started my practice.
Once again, I want to thank Wanda and Authority Magazine for this wonderful opportunity to share what I love with others. You can read the entire article here . (I hope you will!) Until next time!