We all have dreams. Whether it’s travel, retiring on your own terms, building your dream home, spending more time with your grandkids, or anything in between, life goals are real for everyone. But despite that ‘thing’ that sparks your internal passion, one thing is also clear; in order to successfully work toward any goal, you have to be in good health. Without health, little else in life matters, and in times of chronic illness, pushing forward toward your next achievement will often get slowed to a halt. So with all things ‘life dream’ encompassing, health and wellness must also be a source of achievement and intention. With all this being said, alongside every life ambition comes the need and focus on wellness goals too. Have you thought lately about your wellness dreams and how you plan to pursue and achieve them?
Pursing your wellness dream is all about aligning life and health into one. As I continue to highlight this fact as the top key to living a well balanced life, both life and health have to simultaneously coexist. For example, in order to move closer toward your life dream (building your dream home for example), you have to balance the time focusing on planning and working toward it with ensuring you’re also taking care of yourself (and family) too. In this way, you’re not overemphasizing all of your attention on home details while sacrificing sleep, time with family or eating a balanced diet. Unfortunately, once you get to the point where a life goal supersedes health, a dis-regulated balance occurs and health quickly begins to suffer.
Next, let’s further hone in on what it means to balance life and health with the all important consideration about what life looks like for you: what drives your life passion and what encompasses your ideal situation in order to live your dream? Well, yes, this can be a tall order, but it can also very much be within a realistic reach. So in order to determine what it is that essentially makes you happy, you simply need to answer three basic questions:
1. If you could live your ideal life, what are the top three things needed to make it feel complete?
(this could mean living in a certain area, working toward a better personal relationship, or dedicating enough time for your favourite hobby to name a few).
2. How does your current life situation look in comparison to where you’d ideally like to be?
(you may have already achieved some of your ideal life dreams, so the question is, is this enough or do you thrive to need more? – remember, more can also mean less, meaning in order to attain life’s dreams you strive to have less).
3. Am I willing to do what it takes to move closer toward my ideal life?
(don’t worry, many of us don’t necessarily know how at the moment, but small steps will easily help get you there).
Once the above three questions are determined, you’re essentially off to the races. This is not to say that living your ideal life will happen overnight, however you now have the realization, commitment and ability to make it happen.
The reason I’ve focused in on ‘ideal life situation’ is because in order to achieve your wellness dreams, you need to have alignment with your life. The problem with separating life and health into two individual goals is that you’ll inevitably shift an ideal balance further away from one and closer into another; a situation which will never ever end well. Rather, it’s all about making things simpler and rewarding yourself with a ‘two for one deal’ so to speak, wherein if you’re achieving success in life then you’re simultaneously doing the same in health and wellness (or visa versa). Let me give you a personal example from my life: I grew up in the city, yet always recognized an extremely strong connection to nature. I finally made the decision to give up what wasn’t making me happy, let it all go, and moved across the country to settle and live amongst nature. Not only did this help me accelerate some of my most important life dreams, it’s also significantly improved my health and wellness in numerous ways (win win for me!).
As far as what a wellness dream really means, here are a few vey simple examples: optimizing your energy to feel better daily, doing what you love both personally and professionally, living amongst an environment and people that share and support your life dreams, or, as in my personal life experience, slowing down the pace of life and experiencing more consistency amongst your life values. A perfect example of this last example (which is key to living a fulfilled life) would be living a life you love while not dreading any aspect of what you do (work, personal, home, health) – we all know what I’m referring to here; the over abundance of people wanting to ‘escape’ their daily lives (which is a clear sign that you are not currently living within your ideal life goals).
You have what it takes to achieve your wellness dreams. But don’t worry, you don’t need to dedicate your full being to your health. Rather, you simply just need to move closer to your ideal life so you can experience the things you love (remember, it’s a step wise approach, yet one that can be attained if you make the choice). So despite over focusing on either life or health, go for what makes you happy, and optimal health and wellness will surely follow.
Dr Jeremy Hayman, ND helps patients at Cornerstone Naturopathic Inc. feel better, live better, and achieve optimal wellness and health. Years of patient care coupled with dedication to personal life balance has helped Dr Jeremy employ the adage that “your approach to health should be simple”.