DanaAtkin

I’m writing (typing) this from bed today. I had spent all week last week fighting the beginnings of a cold. I mostly ate healthy, nutritious food, I upped my vitamin C and upped my fruit & veggie intake just to be sure.

Then I made sure I took it easy all weekend. The most I did was assist in the re-arranging of all the kitchen cupboards on Saturday.

And even though I did all this resting, all this healthy eating, I woke up this morning feeling worse than I did all weekend. The funny thing is that when I woke up, my first thoughts were “oh no – we have that really big meeting this week that they’re going to need me in for so I have to go in to help out.” Like the little devil sitting on my right shoulder and there on my left shoulder is my inner voice telling me “You tell everyone else to rest, that in the grand scheme of things, your health is more important than any big project or meeting you have on.” That coupled with the fact that I work in wellness was the clincher.

For the record, the inner voice won, which is why I’m writing from bed. The point is that your wellbeing needs to come first. If you don’t look after yourself, then you’re not going to be in any shape to be able to help others if and when they need it.

This doesn’t just apply to calling in sick when you need to either. You can ask yourself in all manner of situations, what would your well being want you to do?

At lunch, when faced with a long menu of all kinds of foods: What would your well being want you to choose?
When out with friends who want to kick on for a big night: What would your well being want you to do?
When you have what seems like a hundred people at work hassling you for documents or presentations, you can get angry or you can remain calm and recognise that you can only what you can do consider this: What would your well being want you to do?

As always, download and save to your desktop or phone or print it and pin it somewhere you’ll see it. When you see it, say it. And if you know someone who would also benefit from this mantra, share it.