Become a Whole Person by Achieving Wellness in all Aspects of Your Life.
The Four Dimensions of Wellnessproper nutrition, regular exercise, personal hygiene, sleep habits, and saying no to unhealthy habits. When you can recognize and control your behaviors that impact your physical health, you can control your weight, your ability to engage in healthy habits, and your ability to say “no” to unhealthy habits. This will lead to your optimal physical wellness, contributing to your journey toward wholeness. Instead of focusing just on your diet or exercise routine, physical wellness is really more about creating a life that supports healthy body functions and will allow you to live a long life.
What Does it Means to be Whole Person?Being a whole person means that all of your wellness dimensions are balanced and contribute to each of the others. When your dimensions are well-rounded and healthy, they help you manage the craziness and unexpectedness of life. And when one or more of your dimensions are out of sync, you are no longer living a whole life but instead living to compensate for those areas that are in jeopardy.
Being a whole, well person means your mind, body, spirit, and soul are working together to bring you happiness and help you find your true joy and passion in life. Being a whole person means full integration of all dimensions of your person so that each component can successfully support the others in reaching their potential.
While some may look at the dimensions and see a separate, compartmentalized function, this is not the case at all. It is that kind of thinking that can lead to imbalance and feeling less than the whole.
When you are focusing on one aspect of your life because it is unhealthy, you make sacrifices in other dimensions of your life, and you lose peace, joy, love, and freedom. But, when other aspects of your life are full and in balance, it actually becomes easier to pay special attention to one dimension that may need more focus and care, because you have the support system necessary to do the important work.
As an example, let’s say you are working on a new project, as you are spending many hours learning something new and focusing on accomplishing a new professional goal. This may mean, though, that you are less focused on maintaining your social relationships or attending to your physical well-being. While your intellectual dimension is healthy, your spiritual and environmental dimensions are taking a hit.
Instead of tallying up each day how each part of your life is doing, though, consider a holistic look at this situation. Are you feeling joy about your work, regardless of the stress and effort you are expending? Are you content with this temporary unsettledness, or does it bring you stress? Are your social relationships supportive of this challenge, or do you find yourself feeling isolated? What have you learned about yourself from this trying time, and how could you apply this to all aspects of your life?
By looking holistically at all of these aspects, which make you a whole person, you can better determine where adjustments need to be made, what parts of your life are helpful and supportive and what parts need attention, and where you are feeling the most vulnerable. It’s this intentional focus on all parts of your life, not just a few, that makes you a whole person that is well, and healthy; it can handle stress better.
7 Benefits of Living as a Whole Person
1. Achieve Balance and HarmonyFinding wellness across all dimensions, you can achieve a balance and harmony between your soul, spirit, mind, and body.
2. Experience Less StressWhen you become a whole person, you experience less stress. You are able to cope with the challenges of life, and you recognize that feeling stressed is a sign of imbalance in one or more of your dimensions. Returning to your intentional study of all aspects of your life will help you relieve that stress and find the peace you desire.
3. Improve Health and Well BeingBeing a whole person allows you to enjoy improved health and well-being. Not only will your body be healthier and able to do more and withstand more, but you will have an arsenal of healthy habits to fall back on when things become difficult or life tests you in new ways.
4. Better Mental HealthBecoming a whole person provides you with personal esteem, a healthier outlook on life, and a sense of purpose that leads to better mental health. Wellness across all dimensions leads to less depression and anxiety and improved abilities to overcome mental challenges that throw us off balance now and then.
5. Increase EnergyWhen you have wellness in all dimensions, you’ll experience more energy. When you have healthy habits that include diet, exercise, sleep, and stress reduction, you’ll notice less fatigue and more pep to your step, overall.
6. Attain Happiness and Joy In LifeStaying social, keeping your mind active, and connecting with a purpose all improve your mood and mental state, as well. All dimensions are responsible for being a whole person, as they all contribute to happiness and joy in life.
7. Gain Freedom to Enjoy LifeIn addition to all of these, becoming a whole, well person means you live your life in freedom. By embracing the multi-dimensional aspects of your wellness and finding balance with them all, you are able to avoid struggle, negative thinking, and emotional turmoil that plague so many in our world today. You become free from feeling stuck and free to enjoy the life you truly want to live. Finding balance and becoming a whole person can help you find all of these, and so much more.
Wellness Assessment Tool
Now that you understand the various dimensions of wellness and becoming a whole person, you can determine in which areas you are strong and where you need to grow. This self-assessment tool can help you identify specific behaviors in each dimension.
The following suggested questionnaire is not a diagnostic tool but merely a helpful guide to your own self-assessment efforts. It is best used for self-reflection and to guide goal setting. Below is Your Self-assessment Questionnaire. To get your self-assessment questionnaire please click on the start quiz button below.
Let’s assess if you are ready to try a new strategy to promote optimal health and wellness! Improve your health and well-being today do the quiz below!
After completing the above assessment questionnaire you should now understand which dimension of wellness you are strong and where you need to grow. Below you can choose which health and wellness strategy you need to work on and then set your goals.