Seven

No, this isn't Super's age. Or the number of bones I've broken. Or the number of trips I had to go out to the car to unload the groceries. (As an aside, unloading the groceries from the car is one of my least favorite jobs. EVER.)

My alma mater is this university, and I still live in the same city that the university is located. So today I was driving past one of the intersections by campus and noticed a big banner that said "Seven" and then led you to the university's Wellness home page.

Now, I've mentioned how I've been pretty UNwell this past year, at least physically. I'm really hoping that 2011 is a more healthy year.

But I also hope that I'm more healthy overall and so I decided to check out the Wellness page.

They list seven areas of Wellness and their definition of each area:

1. Intellectual - Intellectual well-being involves lifelong learning through your formal education and informal life experiences. Well-being in this area increases your openness to new ideas and to maintain a sense of humor, creativity and curiosity.


2. Emotional - Emotional wellness is a journey toward increased awareness, expression and acceptance of a wide range of thoughts and feelings in yourself and others. Optimal emotional wellness helps you achieve positive self-esteem, satisfying relationships and resilience to meet life's challenges.


3. Physical - Physical wellness involves respecting your body's own uniqueness and diversity, and engaging in practices that move you towards a higher level of health. Optimal physical well-being includes connecting with your physical self and avoiding harmful habits, while remaining focused on the balance of body-mind-spirit.


4. Social - Social health means being aware of, participating in, and feeling connected to your community. Social well-being is enhanced by establishing supportive social networks through meaningful relationships with family, friends, colleagues and other significant individuals.


5. Vocational - Vocational wellness can be nurtured by matching your core values with interests, hobbies, employment and volunteer work. As you uncover your talents and passion, you express yourself to the world.


6. Environmental - Environmental well-being includes trying to live in harmony with the earth by understanding the impact of your interaction with nature and your personal environment, and taking action to protect the world around you.


7. Spiritual - Spiritual wellness involves developing an inner connection and harmony between yourself and the wonder, majesty and mystery of the universe.

On the Wellness page, they also encourage people to complete activities in each of the areas for prizes.

Now, I'm all for prizes and all, but a) I'm pretty sure they don't allow alumni to enroll in the program and b) I want to have more control over what prize I'm going to get. I'm all about chocolate for prizes :)

So I'm mulling these areas around in my mind today and trying to decide what my goals are going to be with overall wellness. I may try and complete a goal in each area each month. But that might be too much to take on. I may try and complete a goal in ONE area each month. That would be more doable, but will I lose momentum and motivation that way? And will I feel that I'm not concentrating enough on overall health? Or I may just write all these down in my journal and try and just encourage these ideas in my overall goals and things I do during the year.

I'll let you know what I decide.