The month of August is National Wellness Month! While we should always be practicing wellness throughout the year, this is the perfect time to dive a bit deeper. It’s important to look at all seven dimensions of wellness when creating goals for what you personally would like to improve upon. UW System Human Resources provides an overview of each dimension:

• Emotional – Cultivating an emotional capacity that encompasses optimism, self-esteem, self-acceptance, and the ability to form healthy relationships.
• Environmental – Encouraging a way of life that maximizes harmony with the earth and minimizes harm to the environment.
• Financial – Ensuring the ability to effectively manage your current and future economic life.
• Intellectual – Exercising the mind through creative and stimulating mental activities to expand knowledge and improve skills.
• Occupational – Using your gifts, skills, and talents in order to gain purpose, happiness, and enrichment as part of a balanced life.
• Physical – Making a habit of healthy behaviors including adequate exercise, proper nutrition, and abstaining from harmful habits.
• Social – Developing the ability to interact successfully in our local and global community and creating networks of support.
• Spiritual – Possessing a set of guiding beliefs, principles, or values that help give direction to one’s life.

An article from the The Canadian Veterinary Journal states that “Making the right choices for health and well-being can be challenging. Although we know what is good for us and how we can do — and be — better, we may not act on it, or if we do, we may, in due course, slide back to familiar ways. Human behavior — what we do, how we do it, and whether we will succeed — is influenced by many factors, 2 of which are of particular relevance when it comes to wellness: self-regulation and habits”.

So, how do we achieve this? Harvard Medical School provides the following tips on how to stay focused:

Break big goals into smaller ones. They won’t feel so daunting, and you’ll be able to celebrate success along the way. For example, if you want to write your memoirs, focus first on attending a writing class or researching your family history.

Reward yourself. Positive feedback is a reward in itself, so share your accomplishments with friends and family — in person or on social media. You also can reward yourself with purchases related to your goal.

Monitor your progress. Set up daily or weekly reminders or ask a friend or family member to check in with how you’re doing.

Use visual reminders. Keep a photo related to your goal in constant view, like a vacation destination or the sign-up form for a 5K race.

Let’s all take time during the month of August to set goals for ourselves and create an action plan to achieve them! Hold yourself accountable and know that you can achieve it. There’s no better time to put our well-being as a priority than right now!