Balancing our mental, physical, and emotional health is essential for thriving in both personal and professional domains. This article will take you through how to take small steps to improve your wellbeing. Complete each exercise as you proceed through the article and finish by creating specific action plans to improve your wellbeing.
Recommendation: Have a blank piece of paper or electronic way to capture your responses to each of the action steps.
CliftonStrengths Framework
With the CliftonStrengths framework as a guide, you will:
- Explore how understanding and leveraging your unique strengths is key to enhancing your overall wellbeing
- Delve into practical strategies for identifying areas of wellbeing where your strengths might be experiencing stress
- Learn how to aim your strengths to bring you relief
- Empower you with actionable insights and advice to support your journey towards greater wellbeing
If you’re interested in taking our live strengths and wellbeing session, sign up!
Define Wellbeing
Gallup’s research names five universal elements of wellbeing:
- Career - You like what you do (almost) every day
- Social - You have meaningful friendships in your life
- Financial - You effectively manage your economic life
- Physical - You have the energy to get things done
- Community - You like where you live and work
Many times, when experiencing stress, we think of it as all-encompassing (“I’m SO stressed!”). Drilling down into which area(s) of wellbeing are impacted (and which ones are not!) helps pinpoint where the stress actually lies. This will help you alleviate the stress more effectively, while also reminding you of areas you may be thriving in.
Exercise 1
Name the stress in your life at this moment. Be specific and identify which of the five elements your stress falls into. Some may fall into more than one element. Write it down or type it out.
Suffering to Thriving
Using definitions from 160 million respondents, Jim Clifton and Jim Harter developed the Suffering to Thriving Scale of Wellbeing in their book, Wellbeing at Work.
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Suffering (1-3) - Respondents who rated their elements of wellbeing from 1-3 were more likely to report:
- Feeling miserable
- Negative views of the next 5 years
- Lacking the basics of food and shelter
- Physical pain
- More stress, worry, or anger
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Struggling (4-6) - Respondents who rated their elements of wellbeing from 4-6 were more likely to report:
- Struggling in their present situation
- Uncertain or negative views of the future
- Daily stress
- Money worries
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Thriving (7-10) - Respondents who rated their elements of wellbeing from 7-10 were more likely to report:
- Positive views of their present situation
- Positive views of the next 5 years
- Fewer health problems
- More hope, happiness, energy, or interest
Exercise 2
For each stressor you named in exercise 1, rate yourself on the Suffering to Thriving Scale of Wellbeing. Write or type where you fall on the scale.
Identifying the areas of wellbeing that are lower on the scale will help you explore practical ways to positively impact your level of thriving. What elements of wellbeing do you need to focus on right now?
Stress
Understanding and leveraging your strengths can serve as a compass, guiding you toward resilience in times of stress.
A strengths-based approach to managing stress means you:
- Are aware of what triggers your strengths and understand that each strength feels stress in a different way
- Aim your strengths toward relief because each strength can bring you relief in a different way
Exercise 3
Use the Stress and Strengths handout and reflect on the stress you have named:
- Why might your strength be stressed right now?
- Examples of strengths experiencing stress:
- Communication - unclear point of view, no outlet to communicate
- Positivity - negative people, not being able to see an upside
- Responsibility - letting others down, less autonomy than desired
- Examples of strengths experiencing stress:
- How can you use your strengths to reduce that stress?
- Examples of how strengths can bring you relief:
- Communication - understanding another point of view, being able to share
- Positivity - keeping a hopeful spirit, finding benefit in the outcome
- Responsibility - following through, delegating to reliable partners
- Examples of how strengths can bring you relief:
Write or type specific examples of which strengths are experiencing stress and why. This will assist you in uncovering strategies for integrating CliftonStrengths into your stress management toolkit, empowering you to navigate life's challenges with confidence and clarity. Begin to incorporate those stress-relieving strengths into your current situation. By identifying opportunities for stress relief, you can move up the thriving scale!
Change
Our strengths can initially impede our acceptance of change as we often cling to what's familiar. Yet, they also serve as powerful assets in adapting to new circumstances. By reframing our perspective, we can recognize that our strengths provide a foundation for growth. Embracing change means leveraging these strengths in novel ways, allowing us to evolve and uncover new opportunities for success.
A strengths-based approach to change means you:
- Understand why your strengths might resist change and what you may need to move past the resistance. Resist does not equal “against,” but it may mean you need more information
- Recognize what acceptance of change looks like from your strengths lens
- Utilize your strengths to support the change
Exercise 4
Use the Change and Strengths handout and reflect on the stress you have named:
- Which resist statements do you agree with and how do they impact the stress?
- Which accept and support statements are applicable to the stress you are experiencing? Or what do you need to accept or support?
VUCA - Identifying the Causes of Change-Related Stress
Identifying stressors through the lens of VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity) involves recognizing the dynamic and unpredictable nature of our environments. By dissecting the sources of stress within these four dimensions, we gain insight into the interconnected factors that contribute to our feelings of pressure and unease.
- Volatility - The nature and dynamics of change and the nature and speed of change forces or change catalysts
- Uncertainty - The lack of predictability, the prospects for surprise, and the sense of awareness and understanding of issues or events
- Complexity - The multiplex of forces, the confounding issues, no cause-and-effect chain, and confusion that surrounds the organization
- Ambiguity - The haziness of reality, the potential for misreads, the mixed means of conditions, cause-and-effect confusion
Exercise 5
Utilize your CliftonStrengths Google Drive folder and open your personalized Advantage - VUCA handout. This will help you identify the root cause of your stressors.
Create Your Plan
Taking care of our mental, emotional, and physical health isn't just a nice-to-have—it's essential for sustainable success. Building a plan and prioritizing our wellbeing go hand in hand, laying the groundwork for actively continuing to take care of ourselves.
Exercise 6
- Locate your personalized Improve Your Wellbeing handouts in your Google Drive folder.
- Identify specific ways your CliftonStrengths can help you improve your wellbeing
Exercise 7
Write a statement for how you’re going to prioritize your wellbeing over the course of the next two weeks. This does not need to be a lofty "save the world" kind of goal. It can be as simple as YOU need it to be! Think of what element of wellbeing might most need your attention and use the sentence structure: “I’m going to (wellbeing improvement goal). I’m going to do this by (steps needed to achieve the goal).”
Example: I am going to start practicing mindfulness daily. I’m going to do this by downloading a meditation app and complete 5 minutes of meditation every day.
Check-In Commitment
After two weeks, check in with yourself:
- What went well?
- What could have gone better?
- Did you prioritize wellbeing, or did you push it aside in favor of other priorities?
- Do you need to write a new action statement?
There is no shame in not completing your action plan! Prioritizing wellbeing takes practice and many people are not in the pattern of focusing on their wellbeing. You can write an action plan as many times as you need to help you practice and get in the habit of putting wellbeing toward the top of your to-do list.
Additional Strengths and Wellbeing Documents
- Take a listen to a podcast! Go to the “strengths specific” tab. Column H is specifically about wellbeing. Column J is about feeling more energized at work.
- Gratitude and CliftonStrengths
Thank you for making this time as a team to focus on your wellbeing. Give yourself a hug or a high five!