This is for you if you want to live your life in a better way; with more joy, fulfilment, energy and meaning. 

Here’s a big idea. Why wait until you are sick or run down to take some time off? What if instead of ‘sick days’ you intentionally schedule ‘wellness days’ to boost your energy, health and well-being so that you DON’T crash, get sick, and then be forced to take time off?

What is the impact of NOT adopting 'wellness' days (or even short blocks of time)?

Stress, emotional turmoil, and physical illness has taken a boost in presence for the majority of people these past few years. The increase has come on the wave with so much more uncertainty, instability, and even rising costs of living, while some have lost their jobs or others who are in business may have felt the significant impact of the global events the past few years. Others may have experienced positive results but also feel the increased toll on their health and well-being possibly from a lack of balance of regular self-care, and unchecked subconscious fears running in the background driving them to succeed, or avoid failure.

Rest and rejuvenation are key requirements for success and longevity of health and well-being.

Why? Because like music, where the pause between the notes provides the (mostly) pleasant music, and if you never had any pauses, the music would sound like screeching, even irritating sound; it’s also the space in between all the doing where you rest and relax that creates the harmony and increased resonance to allow unlocked access to intuition, creativity, and BIG IDEAS. With these three elements of success activated it’s easier to feel a heightened level of joy, and inspiration to focus on your next best steps that are your priorities to accomplish your key dreams and goals while living in alignment with your highest values. 

When we are stressed, pushed to the limit, always ‘doing’, ticking off the next thing on the ‘to-do’ list, and taking care of a long list of responsibilities, it can have a negative impact without having regular time to self-regulate, tune within and enjoy your own state of well-being. 

Too many people put off regular self-care, that is to enjoy the time now, instead chasing the illusion of “I’ll chill out when I’ve achieved ….”X”” But that end goal is a small chunk of time, in a usually long time-line that mostly lacks a horizon. What if, as a collective, we were trained to enjoy the daily journey and “smell the roses' ' along the way, instead of running on the conditioned treadmill like a hamster on a wheel, with a promise of “When… Then…” For example, “When I make enough money in my business, I’ll give myself some time off.” “When I finish the project, then I’ll relax (which might be in six weeks time).” 

Yikes! 

Another thing in the way of regular wellness days is giving yourself permission to do that. Often people feel guilty for taking time off, or even if they do attempt some time out and sit down with a cup of tea, or go for a massage, or chill with a movie, their mind is not present in the moment, but instead loading up with more stress and overwhelm about the imagined ever-growing to-do list they will need to face when they get ‘back to work.’

But that just taxes your energy, as much as it does when always being ‘on.’ Which makes you less productive. One solution to that is to get super clear on what is MOST important to you, then prioritise your time and efforts to get the most productive tasks complete first. Within that schedule of ‘most productive’ I highly recommend some ‘wellness time’ or ‘me time’ which doesn’t have to be a whole day, but can begin with fifteen to thirty minutes every day where you allocate specific time to intentionally resting, recharging, relaxing and rejuvenating. Without that, you just end up super stressed.

What does it look like to be stressed out?

(Seriously, most of my clients when they first work with me in my programs don't realise just HOW stressed they are until they connect with truly being relaxed, centred and in their power.)

A stressed out person, who is regularly ‘highly strung’ is more likely to over-react emotionally, make poor decisions (or be stuck in indecision), feel overwhelmed and maybe even procrastinate (with a whole lot of negative internal conversation feeling guilty about what they “should” be doing, which just saps energy, and time). They may even lean on instant gratification for ‘time out’ using food, alcohol, cigarettes, or prescription drugs to self-sooth. Or shopping, you know for that handbag, dress, or technical gadget, that gives a dopamine hit that comes with a new purchase, but then often a heavy feeling of more money woes if you’ve spent your cash or worse put it on a credit card.. The problem with that, is excess spending often means purchases made on credit cards (borrowed money) require one to work harder to earn more to pay it back. But most get caught in the cycle of going further and further into debt, requiring more work (and mental stress), and less time.

To develop the habit of intentionally scheduling some ‘wellness time’, will require you to think a little differently, even creatively.

When you’re caught up in the time-trap over feeling overworked and lacking energy or joy for life, there are significant time challenges to overcome. For many they may be one or more of the experiences below:

• You’re a parent, caring for your young family, home, partner and maybe even working or building your business also. 
• From the outside looking in you look like you live a lavish lifestyle, but you know the financial numbers (at least the credit card debt piling up which you pretend to ignore) are stacked against you, so you TRY to enjoy all your things and stuff and big beautiful home, even the car upgrade, but you’re constantly worried about how much debt you have accumulated or how on earth you will pay it all back before you’re dead. So you just work harder.
• You might be working two or three jobs, or have a job and building your side business, which leaves you an average of four to six hours of sleep a night. You might be thinking “I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” but honestly how sustainable is that before you give up on your dreams or burn out with exhaustion? And by the way, where did that program come from and how well will that work out for you in the time you are alive? Is living day to day in hope, and a lacklustre state of energy what you really want? Or would you prefer to figure out how to design your life on your terms and live your authentic life, enjoying more of the magic moments day to day?
• You're a parent to a restless new-born, and determined to build your business, serving clients or creating your online course or sourcing your products to sell. Sleep? Rest? What’s that??!

I get you. My first four and a half years as a parent (and single mum), taught me to get creative, focus on key priorities, learn to delegate, and ask for help, because I literally ran on pockets of sleep 24-hours a day during those years. 

In the beginning of my parenting journey, while rebuilding my online healing and coaching business, I didn’t have a lot of ‘spare time’ so I would schedule in small self-care packages of time for myself. Things like:

• I went to the gym and put my son into the creche, and I used the opportunity to get a 90-minute to 2-hour sleep on a gym mat on the floor in the corner of the gym, while listening to meditation music. (I was so tired, I literally didn’t care what that looked like). 
• Create morning routines of making myself a cup of my favourite herbal tea or coffee and just sit (in the sunshine during the spring or summer months).
• Build and tend to my potted edible garden, using the time to connect with nature, myself and nurture the plants and me. 
• Ask my mum to baby-sit or sleep over to assist on occasion.
• Paid for a ‘mother’s helper’ to come and be present with me and my son on a Saturday, so I could sleep for a few hours, while his needs were being met. 
• Nurture myself with salt and bubble baths (and often a glass of bubbles to go with it), have a siesta throughout the day, listen to relaxing music or be in complete silence to just simply be with my own thoughts. 
• Journaling to identify and clear fears and limiting beliefs. 
• Daily inner work to heal and let go of old wounds, so I felt more energised to focus on living my best life now and creating an even better one for our future.

As my son got older, and more engaged in activities and now school, there is more available time in my day. But that’s also come about because I invested the first years of building my business in a way to automate as much as I can with systems and support. So I don’t have to do so much, in fact a lot less now while receiving a lot more money, now that I’m able to scale my efforts and have a bigger impact on helping others transform their life too. 

The thing is...

Before I began my online coaching and healing business, I did a similar thing when I was working full-time as a Paramedic. I focused on working smarter, not harder. Though initially it WAS ‘harder’ as there was focused effort to build my property portfolio and publishing a cookbook and online blog. But those efforts paid off for years and years. The initial ‘extra’ work up front bought my time back as I was able to leverage my money working FOR ME in assets, instead of only trading my time for money, and having to repeat that pattern to earn more when I spent what I earned.. 

That initial real estate and business building experience in the 2000’s gave me the idea to utilise ‘digital real estate’ with the same concept; these days instead of tenants renting my houses (which have so much expense, costs to get in, and lots of maintenance headaches to boot), I have built online courses to sell, leveraging my time to provide value one to many instead of serving one-to-one with clients; making it possible to earn a healthy six-figure-plus a year income without burning myself out with 40-60 hour weeks (or as a Paramedic in my final days before I retired, I worked in Port Hedland and sometimes worked a full 96-hours straight over an 8-day week. Insane!). The truth is, these days, after making the decision to design my life with a balance of feeling energetic, healthy, happy and creative, I now rarely work in my business more than 12-15 hours a week. Sometimes as little as a few hours a day three to four days a week. 

But I now have what most call “Wednesday hump day” dedicated to be my “Wednesday Wellness Day.” I take a FULL DAY OFF. I have zero time in my office or computer. I practically have a digital detox (I might have my phone but stay off social media unless I am quickly posting an update). 

Having regular ‘wellness days’ makes you a better entrepreneur, better parent, better person. Period. It certainly has for me. And I know if you implement this strategy into your life too, it will help you elevate your well-being: emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually and yes, even financially. Because you are happier, more productive, more inspired, and more clear of mind and direction when you take regular care of yourself.

So how do I use my “Wellness Wednesdays”?

Sometimes that’s a day with a friend, or catching up on personal appointments. Mostly it’s a day filled with cleaning and organising my home (which I love doing and blessing my space as I go), cooking, watching movies, walking and tending to my garden.

This last Wednesday was a day connecting with my mum in the morning with coffee and an early lunch then with nature in the afternoon, tending to my edible garden. 

In it I have; new plants and new growth: my fruit trees are growing lemons oranges apricots, blueberries mulberries, and even almonds are evident this year!

A few more weeks and hopefully the cold winds pass and give way to the warmer summer weather I’m so ready for. Then my Wednesdays will include early morning’s at the beach to rest, swim, paddleboard, walk, meditate, later get lunch by the water, hiking, more time in my garden, food prepping for the week, maybe some cooking (which I love to do), reading while lazing in a deck chair enjoying the sunshine, and quite frankly whatever makes me feel good to enjoy my time with myself and feel WELL all rounded. 

If you want more energy in your day to day life, then the idea of adopting ‘wellness days’ (or even beginning with ‘wellness moments’ every day, which to be clear I include in my week as well as a full day dedicated to a “wellness day” now), to boost your sense of joy, well-being and health instead of waiting until you are sick, or burnt out and crash with no other choice than to stop, is a lot more fun way to live. 

If, like me, you are dedicated to designing life on your own terms, then scheduling regular ‘Wellness’ Days is a MUST, not an option, for your best success and enjoying the journey along the way. 

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