Category: Uncategorized

Yes, yes we work hard and sort the house and buy food and check emails and go to meetings and network and and and the list goes on. Let’s take it as read that life for a busy business person is busy. However, how often do we stop and take time to really assess our own well-being and think about how well our being really is?

Having a well-being week at work is a great thing to do and for those who label this kind of activity as ‘fluffy bunny time’ then I’d invite you to think again. Perhaps the arrival of a fruit tray might seem like trying to whistle in a high wind and yet even a fruit tray is a step in the right direction.

From fruit to training. From training to sharing. From sharing to making new decisions. From new decisions to greater health. This is the curve of a successful series of well-being events in our work-place, where over time people become confident that the initiative isn’t simply fashionable window dressing and is instead a hearty effort to create a genuine sense of awareness in people. Awareness often leads to long lasting change, greater productivity and a healthy bottom line.

Assuming we do care about ourselves (and if we don’t then see option B below), what can we do to increase our well-being? Here are a few options to have fun with…

C – Eat an apple. More fruit is good for us.

D – Drink more water. Drugging ourselves with caffeine to survive the day is a bad habit. We wouldn’t do it to our kids so why do we do it to ourselves?

E – Sleep more. An extra 30 minutes a day adds up to an extra 178 hours a year, or 22 more nights of rest.

F – Turn off the Wi-Fi. Removing the constant background hum of emails and social media alerts can calm us down and will enable us to fully relax over the weekend.

G – Run an event. Make the last week of every other month a well-being week and do one thing to improve our health.

A – Take a 2-hour break. If we are busy then suddenly stopping our work for a day may be impossible, but we can all find a couple of hours to sit in the sun, read a book, go for a walk, play a musical instrument, run a couple of miles, or bake a cake. Physical, or creative, activity gets rid of pent up stress and relaxes us.

B – Get support. I’m a big believer in support and don’t think we have to know all the answers in life. There are people out there who know how to help us increase our well-being and can share expertise and cheer us on if we falter.

C – Download a piano app to our smartphone and make a noise. The letters used to denote the options here form the C-Major scale. We can have a sing too if we like!

Being well can be a zero cost option. It can be about making one simple change to our working lives. It can be about us deciding to be important and putting our health before profits. The lovely ‘catch’ here is that healthy happy people tend to generate more profits anyway.

What will you do this week to be well? I’ve already moved my 2.00am bedtime to 10.00pm and wow do I feel so much better and have started to really enjoy being at my desk at 6.00am, instead of foggily falling out of bed and rushing to get into the day. We can all start to create good new habits for ourselves!

Next week: Are You A ‘Day-1’ Business?

Last weekend was of course Easter …a time for reflection, fun with the family and chocolate eggs. And if you were lucky, or well planned, all three.

I can still remember getting an egg, as a child, that came with its own mug and I thought that was the coolest thing ever…I mean, come on! An egg with a mug! We didn’t care that the internet hadn’t been invented when we had stuff like that to amuse us.

Some folk opine that choccy eggs are all packaging and therefore not good value, but that’s to ignore the value of a tiny child’s smile when they unwrap the shiny foil covering, smash up the egg and try to eat it in one excited mouthful. Pricless perhaps?

Thinking of value and my own need for treats I was browsing in a well known food shop when I spotted half bottles of Prosecco for £3. They seeemed better than a standard sized bottle for £5, which I would never finish on my own. Flat fizzy for breakfast, despite having tried it on Boxing Day (and who hasn’t), is not nearly as refeshing as I thought it would be. Green tea for me!

Then I spied a commotion in one isle, with shoppers all descending on a hapless assistant who couldn’t mark down the chosen delicacy fast enough. Profiteroles, that were usually £8 were flying into trolleys for only £3. A bargain.

The profiteroles were definitely the better deal …saving me a handy £5 and ensuring a supply of chocolate tastiness for the rest of the day.

It was only when unpacking the shopping that I was surprised to realise the neat stack contained a full 30 little treats. In my haste to bag the bounty I hadn’t stopped to think about how many profiteroles count as the safe dose for an adult. It was time to find out and begin my Easter profiterole-a-thon.

Three days later …only four to go. It turns out that the most you can eat in one 24 hour period is about 12 before your body starts to rebel and make newing noises along the lines of ‘please no more, we need vegetables now!’

This episode taught me that value is relative. The Prosecco was the poorer deal in cash terms, but a half bottle was just enough and so no wastage ensued. The profiteroles became more of a challenge than a treat and I began to wish that I hadn’t been caught up in the bargain frenzy.

When we are valuing our own products and services we need to match the client’s true needs with what we would really like to charge them. Higher prices can instil confidence that we know our business and a bargain can lead to a race to the bottom of our niche.

Next time you buy 30 profiteroles it will take about five days to eat them, based on my selfless research. Maybe not such a good bargain after all!

Next week: Well-Being For Beginners