A practical guide for building a wellness schedule you can commit to
Looking to jumpstart your wellness routine? Here’s an easy to follow wellness schedule broken down by day, week, month, quarter and year that will completely transform your approach to health.
If there is one thing that comes naturally to me, it’s taking care of my health.
That’s not to suggest that I’m the wisest person on the this topic, that every day is perfect or that I’ve always been wired this way (spoiler alert: I have NOT), but for the last near decade of my life my health and wellness has been my priority.
Because of this, I’m often asked by clients and friends things like where I find my motivation, or how I fit it all in. And that’s exactly what I want to talk about here today.
The one thing that continues to help me immensely on my journey to stay focused and committed to my health: my wellness schedule, where I break down for myself the health-focused habits I need and like to do every day, week, month, quarter and year.
This method that I’m about to illustrate, more than any other, helps me visualize all of the different things I need and like to do, to help me look, feel and do my best - personally and professionally.
Unlike a traditional schedule (which can be ultra specific and time-bound), my wellness schedule looks at what I can do in a day and over time, and basically serves as a checklist of small things I can turn to that I know will make me feel good.
Today, I’m not only going to share with you what my personal “wellness schedule” looks like, but also the two tactics I use to overcome resistance and stay motivated to keep going - even when I don’t want to.
Without further delay, here’s what wellness looks like for me - broken down by day, week, month, quarter and year.
Daily Health and Wellness
Juice or smoothie
Spend time outdoors
Exercise
Read
Journal/free-writing
Tidy living and work space
Sleep (7-9 hours)
Drink Water
Garden
Weekly Health and Wellness
Infrared sauna (2-3x)
Yoga (1-2x)
Shop for groceries (2x)
Food prep: wash and chop veggies and fruit, cook grains , soups and stews (1-2x)
Tune into a podcast
Hang out with a friend
Plan meals
Go to the farmers market
Buy fresh flowers
Monthly Health and Wellness
1 day Kitchari Cleanse
Try something new
Assess budget and finances
Quarterly Health and Wellness
Revisit and refine goals
3 or 5 day Kitchari cleanse
Facial treatment
Plan a get away
Annual Health and Wellness
Travel somewhere new
Set goals and intentions for the year
Personal and professional studies/course work
Creating Your Own Wellness Schedule
If you feel inspired to create your own version of this, here are a few important things to know about how I use and refine it to ensure it remains effective and never gets stale:
Keep the schedule on all devices. Glance at it a few times a week, when you need some direction or are craving a little self-care. See what excites and appeals to you in the moment.
Regarding daily items, these are things you should strive to do every day. While some days you won’t be able to get it all in, the goal is to do all of it or as much as possible.
Weekly items are things aim to do 1-3 times a week. Anything more than that should go on your list of daily items.
If there is something in any one of the categories that you’re no longer interested in or consistently avoiding, remove it from the list. Remember: this is a list of things you turn to, to make you feel good. If there’s something stale on there that you’re avoiding, even if it’s something you hope to eventually be consistent with, it’s still better to remove it from the list because it’s not contributing to your life in any way other than making you feel guilty or bad for not doing it.
On that note, you can always add new things to this list if you feel inspired to do so! Courses, a new hobby, or whatever latest wellness trend piques your interest - this list can and should evolve with you and your interests. It’s important to revisit and refine what self-care and wellness means to you throughout the year.
Battling Resistance
Now that we’ve discussed how to forecast, schedule and approach your wellness, I want to share a bit about making sure you implement all of your plans.
Because, no matter how seasoned you are in taking care of yourself there will always be resistance.
In fact, the more important a call or action is to our evolution and growth, the more resistance you’ll face toward pursuing it.
I think it’s fair to say that our health is our greatest priority. So you can imagine all of the different forms of resistance you will meet on your path as you strive to do what you need to, to take care of yourself.
When resistance rears its ugly head, there are two tactics in particular that I’ve found to work especially well to help ensure I don’t fall victim to excuses:
First, I like to sit with the feeling or excuse; then I ask myself, if passing on what I should be doing will fix this problem or make it better?
For instance, let’s say you planned to work out this morning. But you woke up feeling tired and without much energy.
I would first acknowledge the feeling and say, “I feel some kind of resistance to working out and I think it’s because I’m feeling tired and don’t have the energy to get going.”
Then, I ask myself if doing the actual task - the workout - might fix this? The honest and correct answer here is yes, it will. I have enough experience working out to know that I always feel more energetic once I’m done vs. when I first start.
If this first strategy doesn’t work on its own, and I’m still facing resistance and serving up excuses, I move on to the second tactic, and that is to ask myself: can I modify my approach, just to get me started? Again the correct answer is yes, I can.
I can commit to working out for less time, choose a more manageable work out, use smaller weights or my own body weight, etc.
Using these two tactics I can help bring myself to do almost anything…and so can you.
Final Thoughts
As you can see, taking care of yourself is work. Real, hard work. In fact, I think half of the battle of taking care of yourself is just admitting that what you’re aiming to do every day is hard, takes a effort and requires discipline.
That said, it’s the best kind of work. The kind that will make you happier, more confident, generally enhance your life and create opportunities for you to expand and grow.
Creating a wellness schedule and forecast for the year has helped me commit to my health unlike any other tool I’ve used.
That, and understanding how resistance works and the steps that need to be taken on my part to overcome it.
If you struggle to commit or stay consistent with your wellness routine, I strongly recommend that you give this approach a try.
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