FEATURE — What does wellness mean to you? It might mean that you are able to do the activities that you enjoy. Perhaps it means maintaining a balance between work and life. Wellness is an actively sought-after goal to attain one’s best possible health through proper diet, exercise and life habits.

We are all searching for a level of wellness that will bring us longevity, peace, love and connection. It is important to note that wellness is not the absence of disease or illness. It is the culmination of a lifetime of healthy habits that ushers in the presence of comfort and happiness. One way of attaining this level of mental, physical and emotional health is the development of a wellness vision.

A wellness vision is a compelling statement of who you are and what healthy behaviors you want to be doing consistently. Creating a wellness vision should give you confidence, energy and a feeling of authenticity. It will guide you in making decisions, setting goals and focusing on your priorities while also serving as a catalyst to move your values into actions.

Your vision for wellness may necessitate a major adjustment to your lifestyle, which will require the use of two important components of behavioral change, often called the “twin engines”: self-motivation (I want to do it) and self-efficacy (I believe I can do it). In a recent report published by the Institute of Coaching, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School, co-founder and coach Margaret Moore emphasized that both of these twin engines depend on each other and must be fully powered to move forward. Your wellness vision can provide purpose and meaning that can jump-start your forward momentum and be the foundation for behavioral change.

So what is the role of purpose and meaning on motivation? Research done by Dr. Paul T. P. Wong, professor at Trent University, found that having a sense of purpose and meaning was a predictor of psychological and physical well-being. Wong said that meaning is necessary for healing, resilience, optimism and well-being.

Additional research conducted by Dr. Patricia Boyle et al. and published by the National Institute of Health found that people with Alzheimer’s disease who had a strong sense of life’s purpose were less affected by brain plaques and tangles than were people with Alzheimer’s disease without a strong sense of purpose. They concluded that there was something about having purpose that prevented the disease from fully manifesting in cognitive decline. 

Wellness visions are created by focusing on strengths, working through barriers and defining support systems to ensure the best possible outcomes. Don’t dwell on what isn’t working for you. Focus on what is working, and develop small goals or experiments to help you close the gap between where you are and where you want to be.  

A wellness vision is a compelling description of your best self. If you would like to learn more about creating your wellness vision and moving towards your goals, contact the Intermountain Healthcare LiVe Well Center at 435-251-3793 and schedule an appointment with one of our certified health coaches.

Written by TIFFANY K. GUST, MS, CISSN, fitness coach and exercise physiologist at the Intermountain Healthcare LiVe Well Center – St. George.

This article was originally published in the Jan/Feb. 2022 issue of St. George Health and Wellness magazine.

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