Working to improve your mental, physical, and spiritual well-being is a noble pursuit, but it doesn’t come easily. If it did, then everyone would do it. These kinds of improvements take time and effort, and perhaps most of all, they require understanding. All too often, people looking to invest in their overall wellness end up making mistakes that make the journey more challenging than it needs to be.
In this post, we’re going to run through some of these common errors, as well as outline some handy tips on how you can avoid them. Let’s take a look.
Changing Everything Overnight
It’s good to go into everything you do with enthusiasm, but in the case of wellness, too much enthusiasm can actually end up working against you. Let’s say, for example, you’re hit by a wave of motivation to radically improve your life, and commit to going to the gym, meditating every day, and volunteering with a charity.
While that can sound good, making too many abrupt changes to your lifestyle increases the chance of giving up. It is, after all, difficult to radically change your life in an instant. Instead, a better approach would be to slowly implement these changes. Real development comes from building habits. Start slow, adjust your habits, and you’ll be much more likely to stick to them.
Setting Unrealistic Expectations
Another reason people give up on their wellness ambitions is that they fail to achieve the kind of improvement they’re looking for, decide that it must be a waste of time, and stop. But there are very few — if any — instant fixes in this world. Maybe winning the lottery will instantly improve your life, but that’s about it. You’ll need to be patient to get results. If you’re meditating with crystals, spending time outdoors, and going to the gym, then you will notice an improvement; it just probably won’t be within the first few days. In a few weeks, you’ll see the changes. And if you don’t? Play around with what you’re doing. Sometimes it’s necessary to increase the intensity or find a different activity that works for you.
Failing to Conduct Research
There are some things that you can just do without thinking. Spending time in nature will be good for you whether you know the names of the trees and the birds you’re looking at or not. But in other areas, a little bit of knowledge can go a long way. Take meditating with crystals, which we mentioned above, as an example. Holding crystals while meditating can increase focus and the depth of the experience, but only if you’re holding the right crystals. As Earthlysoul explains, some crystals just aren’t appropriate for beginners. Getting the benefits will depend on finding the ones that are right for you. Ultimately, conducting research can simply make your wellness journey more straightforward. Everything from eating healthily to exercising can be improved with a little bit of reading.
Not Prioritizing Rest
Wellness is an investment. In fact, if you’re going to the gym, meditating, journaling, and engaging in other wellness activities, it could take up a significant part of your day. It’s easy to get sucked into the trap of thinking that your wellness depends on doing mind, body, and soul-boosting activities all the time. It doesn’t. Rest is arguably just as important as any of them. You can’t always be on the go. Plus, investing in rest allows the benefits of your wellness pursuits to really sink in. You’ll get more benefit from meditation if, after a session, you go to bed rather than moving on to the next self-improvement activity.
Failure to Journal
Most of the things that people do as part of their self-improvement involve activities that they often do outside of the home. For instance, attending a yoga class or going to the gym. Even activities that they do at home, such as meditation or breathwork, are chunks of time dedicated to one specific pursuit.
It’s easy to overlook journaling, but we’d argue that it’s essential. For one thing, it allows you to document your wellness journey, and that can simply be great to read back on. It’s always good to see how far you’ve come. Journaling can also help you develop your understanding of yourself and the things you’ve learned on your journey. Let’s say, for example, you’ve just finished twenty minutes of meditation. That would be the perfect time to put a pen in your hand and write a few pages in your journal, since your mind and soul will be open.
Forgetting the Basics
There are plenty of wellness activities you can engage with to really enhance your well-being, but don’t forget the basics of well-being. They’re foundational. Things like spending time with friends, being a good neighbor, and going for walks in the outdoors are tried and tested solutions for improving well-being. Even something as simple as a healthy meal can play its part. In an increasingly complex world, it’s often the classics that come to the rescue.
Putting Too Much Faith in Fads
Don’t get us wrong: there are modern wellness trends that are worth exploring. Research points us in new directions all the time. Still, while you can incorporate elements of modern trends into your wellness habits, it’s best to avoid becoming too reliant on them. They might prove to be game-changers, or they might not. Sticking to the ones that have a long history — in some cases, thousands of years — is better than prioritizing ones that may be forgotten about in a year or so.
Not Trusting The Journey
Finally, remember that the journey towards wellness can be long and challenging. In fact, you could argue that it’s the journey itself, not the destination, that matters the most. If you do all the things that we’ve outlined in this post, then you’ll get somewhere. In the end, it’s not possible to escape all pain and low moments, but with the right tools, you’ll make them as fleeting as possible.