Let’s talk about wellness and wellness coaching. What comes to mind when you hear the term wellness? Clean diet. Adequate exercise. Good health. Not being sick. Those are all common things I hear when I ask clients to describe what wellness means. Guess what? They’re right and they’re wrong because wellness does encompass those things but wellness also involves much, much more.

First, I invite you to think about wellness as a continuum, an idea borrowed from Dr. John Travis’ book, The Wellness Workbook.  On one end you have pre-mature death (disability, illness and symptoms).  On the other end you have high-level wellness (growth, vitality and abundance).  In the middle is a neutral point (no discernable illness nor wellness).  In between there are many degrees of illness and wellness.  My question for you is which end of the continuum do you want to strive for?

If you said high level wellness then the second step is to move past the idea that wellness is just diet and exercise. Yes, those are important elements, and one we focus on a lot as health coaches, but together they make up just one pillar of wellness. Just one. What else is there? Well, you might be surprised to learn that there are six pillars of wellness.

1. Mental Health (What affects you mentally?)

2. Physical Health (Insert diet and exercise here!)

3. Spiritual Health (What do you need spiritually to thrive?)

4. Emotional Health (Are you letting your emotions limit you?)

5. Environmental Health (Where you spend time matters.)

6. Financial Health (Financial security impacts your wellness in a big way.)

Together, these six areas contribute to whole-person wellness.  These are the six areas we often focus on in wellness coaching when a client wants to move closer to the high-level wellness.

When a client starts wellness coaching I give them an in-take assessment that helps to organize their thoughts around these six areas and reflect on which areas are going well and which areas they would like to focus more on in coaching. I love how clients are often surprised by what they learn after taking the assessment.  Many times what originally brought them to wellness coaching turns out to be a lesser priority in comparison to other areas they uncovered as a higher priority and more impactful on their overall wellness.

Now that you hopefully have a better understanding of the term “wellness” and the six areas or pillars that make up whole person wellness and wellness coaching, I invite you to download this Wheel of Life assessment.  Use it to evaluate your wellness and to find your own satisfaction rating because the first step towards high-level wellness is creating awareness around any areas you may want to improve.