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Do you know anyone who’s into getting in shape, yet ignores other areas they need to work on?
Perhaps they’re one of those people who always eats the right foods (you know, the kale and quinoa crowd) and who seems to be at the gym all the time. But maybe they have a bad habit—one they can’t stop that is messing up their lives—that they do nothing about. That compulsive issue is harming them and also hurting their families. And their company.
Unfortunately, a good Body Fat Index won’t fix addiction or mental health problems.
Figuring Out What’s Missing from Wellness
The approach many people—and companies—take to wellness is like that. But what is wellness?
“Wellness is an active process through which people become aware of, and make choices toward, a more successful existence.” (National Wellness Institute)
That’s a great definition! But the way many people—and companies—approach wellness is incomplete.
Because it’s much more than physical fitness. It encompasses a broader, multidimensional lifestyle that integrates emotional, mental, social, spiritual, and personal components along with the physical.
And when there are compulsive habits like substance abuse or mental health issues involved, eating right and exercise won’t fix the problem. Surely good things to do, but not enough for people to become truly well.
It’s like spending hours waxing a car that has dangerously bald tires and bad breaks. And, sometimes, it’s like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Filling in What’s Missing from Wellness
About 75% of people with addiction work full-time. One half of families struggle with behavioral health issues. And they are not only treatable, they are preventable! Why don’t businesses do more to help their people? Good question.
Current approaches to business—and personal—wellness tend to ignore the issue that is: the most dangerous, the most widespread, the most ignored, and the most preventable.
It doesn’t make sense. Companies—and people who work at them—are being harmed in the process. But there is a solution.
Because there are skills and knowledge that can make employees better at work, and which can also enhance their lives and prevent addictions. What’s missing from wellness can be addressed by:
- Developing life enhancement skills of employees and families – A balanced lifestyle, greater awareness, positive relationships, life management tools, dealing with personal and family issues, and a personal plan for growth.
- Prevention of substance abuse and mental health problems – Behavioral health, root causes and warning signs, dealing with stigma, helping others who are struggling, and getting help and recovery earlier in the process.
- Increasing resilience, engagement, and productivity – Understanding burnout, managing our mindset, dealing with stress, coping habits, how family and work affect each other, and becoming more intentional and productive.
- Improving wellness of the people and organization – Establishing a positive and productive lifestyle based on emotional well-being, mental excellence, social connection, spiritual understanding, and personal progress.
This approach integrates the best aspects of personal and professional development, resilience, life-improvement, wellness, and recovery-informed prevention, It can work for companies and for the people who work there.
It can also work for you. And you can get there one step at a time.
Taking a New Approach to Wellness
What’s missing from wellness?
What’s missing is an integrated approach to life-enhancement and prevention of behavioral health issues: practical steps that can turn lives around, and improve the effectiveness of the companies they work for.
It can be achieved by using recovery-informed principles and tools combined with wellness and personal development to get ahead of problems before lives come apart. And, at the same time, developing the practical skills to live life better. Anyone can learn it and, it can be made easily accessible online. Safe, confidential, useful—life-changing.
With compulsive or addictive behavior, avoiding the issue will be costly, because behavioral health issues are the enemy of wellness, engagement, and productivity. They negatively affect all aspects of who we are emotionally, mentally, socially, spiritually, and personally. They degrade us occupationally, intellectually, and physically.
The good news is that it works the other way as well. Taking the right steps to enhance our lives and prevent addiction will have a positive impact across all those same areas. This goes as well for enhancing the lives of employees’ families.
People—and companies—often address the easy problems and ignore the most serious ones.
Why not flip it around? Work on the critical issues first. Once those are under control, it is easier to improve other areas. By filling in what’s missing from wellness, life can be better. And people—and companies—can get there one step at a time.
Question: What’s missing from wellness habits you have put in place in your life?
Action: Learn more about recovery-informed principles that can change your life.
